Camera Day

Grammy, Clarence, Helen, a neighbor girl, Dad and little sister Doris

This is one of my favorite pictures taken in the 1930's.  Grammy wrote across the bottom in pencil "some happy days on the farm."  A camera was a cherished possession back then and photographs carefully stored in albums and boxes.  Grammy could have never imagined a digital camera, much less a time when this photo would be visible to anyone in the world with an Internet connection. 

June 29th is National Camera Day.  Pictures are memories of our lives, and year after year the camera records important events.  The camera captures the moment forever and creates the memories we share and look back on, happy and sad.  I've been watching news clips of frantic home evacuations in Colorado, and photographs and pets are the first things stuffed into cars when people flee.

Using a camera has never been easier and we take pictures at a fast click because it's "free." But digital photography creates different challenges for organization, access and storage.  There are all sorts of nifty programs and tools to help, but it still requires human effort and consistency. I have thousands of images stored on my laptop, and being a librarian I'm ashamed to say the organization leaves much to be desired.

On top of that problem, every image I've ever posted on the blog is stored somewhere "out there" on Picasa, a photo-sharing website owned by Google and similar to Flickr.  In three years of blogging, I've just managed to exceed my 1 GB of free space so now I'm a Google storage customer. I've started "renting" an additional 26 GB of storage for about $2.50 a month.  I think 26 GB will hold about 7,000 photographs. What a world.

My photos on Picasa are a horrible hodgepodge since I've never made the effort to create usable albums. It's complicated. John just ordered a book for me called Picasa Web for Seniors which is hopefully dumbed down enough that I can finally tackle the project.  If I can organize my digital photos out there in the cloud, I'll never have to worry about home backup again-- it's Google's problem.

We have a little scanner attached to the computer, and I've gradually been scanning old family photographs that have been tossed in a box for years. This is fun.

Susie and Marji

Punting with Baby Amanda in England

Our European transport in the 1970's

An English walk with Dad and Amanda

College girl

Amanda and Mom at Lincoln Park

Amanda and Cowboy

Prom night