Holy Thousands of Pictures

I have officially decided that I am the non-declared photographer in my family. Looking right now, I have a whopping 19,883 pictures and 1,827 videos in my photo reel. Why? Honestly, I can’t remember shit, so I like to document memorable events and moments with as many pictures as possible. My absolute favorite are the “live” photos where you can relive the actual seconds around the photo taking. Not quite a video, but close to capturing the same type of movement.

I’m 30 and am so disappointed that I have the awkward “middle years” missing from my extensive I-cloud images. It’s like I can scroll all the way back to 2013 and then everything before then is a mystery. I know I took pictures but where the hell are they? I can’t remember if they’d be chilling on old phones from those years- potentially gone forever, pre-cloud times, or maybe they are on a roll waiting to be deposited or whatever one day.

Overall, the concept of picture keeping is rather mind blowing. Where have all the millions of pictures from the years gone?? Do some people really just throw out pictures from generations ago or what happened to them all? A picture says a thousand words so I like to think I have many treasures on hand. The black and white pictures my dad has from his parents and grandparents are absolutely incredible! One day I want to just study them all and pretend I know what they were talking about or doing in that moment. It was clearly important enough for them [the picture taker] to want to document it, so it must be worthwhile to remember.

Having children makes my desire to keep taking pictures even stronger. I want them to have access to pictures from their childhood and growing up that they can hold on to forever. I just wonder what the future of pictures will look like. With clouds being password protected, does that mean that if anything were to happen to me and no one has my password, my 20 thousand pictures are lost forever? There are so many things I’ve never thought about before that I find myself pondering lately!!

How many pictures do you have in your photo reel? What are you thoughts for keeping them organized over the years and what are your thoughts on the future of photographs?!