In The Moment or In The Picture?

Hi again!

For starters, I want you to think about that one friend or family member that LOVES pictures. This person will make you take pictures for hours until they get the perfect one. Sadly, I have multiple people like that in my life and one of them happens to be my best friend. Don't get me wrong I love taking pictures with her, especially when we go do something fun or we are dressed up nice. But before I go see her, I always have to prepare myself to take a lot of pictures since that's what she loves to do. I haven't really thought about it much until now on why taking a thousand pictures with her has bothered me. I just thought about the last time we spent together and how much fun it was - and of course I went to look at my camera roll and there were surprisingly ZERO pictures. That's kinda crazy considering how much this girl loves to take pictures. But we didn't take pictures this past trip because it was just her and I for a week straight, laughing our butts off while making great memories - that I actually remember. 

I'm someone who actually grew up as a baby model and has gone on many photoshoots for professional photographers, and can enjoy it for hours. But there's just something about being with the people you love and spending HOURS taking pictures with them that gets me SO annoyed. I think it's because I'd personally rather be in the moment with these people instead of taking a picture with them. My mom is also another person who loves taking a hundred million photos, especially family photos. My siblings and I will always get irritated with her but we just have to push through it to make mom happy - happy mom happy life, right? While you are in these moments, have you ever realized when you look back to a picture of you smiling and looking happy - that you were actually SO annoyed and irritated? Honestly, do you remember that or do you just look at the picture and think you were happy?

I have gone back and looked at some of my pictures with me and my friends or of just myself and tried to remember how the day went. In some pictures I remember actually having a great day but in some I remember just awkwardly posing for pictures and the rest of the day actually being very boring. Most of the pictures that I would consider me having a boring day are honestly the ones of just myself - so why did I post them? Well my answer to that is obviously because I thought I looked good. Does that make me a selfish person? No, but it definitely portrays an image of myself for that day that didn't actually occur. Social media can portray anything someone wants their life to look like, this is because you're only looking at someone from the outside of their life. Unless you truly know the person who is posting the picture, you have no idea what their attitude was like while taking the picture, who took the picture, the effort they made to take the picture, and etc. 

Social media and taking selfies has created a new way to hold onto our memories forever. Before smartphones came out, the photos we had were from disposable cameras. You would take the picture and would not be able to see what it looked like until after you went to get them printed - you also couldn't retake the picture (I bet that was nice LOL). I have a big box of pictures of me when I was little and of all my family members, which I'm sure most families do as well. Personally, I am not a sentimental person, like AT ALL - but as I have gotten older I have started to realize pictures are sometimes all you have left of a person. Objects and sacred items are also a way we choose to use as memories, which can also be all you have left of a loved one. I have never been the type of person who has cared for sentimental items, especially when they are coming from someone who is deceased (I'm weird, I know). That being said, pictures are just something that I will forever love to look back on and keep as a memory. 

Pictures are forever memories that will fill your mind and warm your heart no matter where you are in life. So the next time you're taking a picture - whether it's by yourself or with a loved one, try to remember to actually be in the moment. One day when you come across that picture again, you may not remember the whole day completely - but you will remember that moment and you will be glad that you did.