Re: Thanksgiving — “There’s no better day to stay in focus,” says Nick Kelsh.
OK, he is a professional photographer with a great sense of humor who loves teaching us how to take good photos. As he shared the above sentiments in an email, he explained further — “I hope that you all continue to maintain detail in your shadows and your highlights in your photographs and your relationships on this most wonderful American holiday. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!”
My question to you all:
Did you take photos at your Thanksgiving gathering?
Why do I ask?
“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the things we need most in the world.” This quote from Phillip Pullman makes the strong point that must then be brought to completion with another quote, one from Cathi Nelson:
“We take photos to tell the stories of our lives.”
Cathi is the author of “Photo Organizing Made Easy” and has a ton of experience in this area having been a photo manager/trainer for many years.
So you can now see my underlying question – without the photos, would you remember the stories?
Now, zooming in on Thanksgiving (knowing Christmas is just around the corner), why didn’t you take photos?
Oh, great – a few of you are smiling smugly saying “I did!” So my question to you is “what did you do with them? What’s the plan?”
In my totally unofficial, non-scientific survey, here are the most common reasons there are no photos …or there are some — but they will die on the phone:
–I was so exhausted from cooking, hosting, traveling or whatever, I just couldn’t rouse myself to go find the camera, or grab my phone – no time to think about it
–I didn’t want to hear all the groans, complaints, whining as I began to arrange groupings of people for photos
–I didn’t like how I would look (haven’t lost the weight yet, or I had a bad hair day, or whatever) so I just didn’t take any photos
–I never get around to doing anything with the photos, anyway, so why bother
–I take terrible photos – I’m just not good at it
And yet there are some interesting statistics to consider:
Info Trends projects we will take over 1.4 trillion photos in 2021. Video is also increasing according to YouTube statistics.
That info is what led me to ask – where are all those photos and videos going to be in 5 years, 10 years, even further into the future?
As Cathi noted in her book, the “photos you care most about, such as the birth of a child, a wedding, gatherings with friends, the first day of school or a family reunion, happen in a moment that can’t be recreated.”
That would include Thanksgiving, my friends.
If you remember a previous blog I did, we re-named photos “return tickets” – they capture a moment in time that is gone forever and only when you later look at that photo do you truly get a “return” to the moment and stories surrounding it. It’s your “return ticket” back to that moment in time.
OK, I have totally shamed myself into getting prepared for Christmas. I fumbled badly at Thanksgiving as I had a new camera and when I grabbed it to take the group photo, I could not find the self-timer function – couldn’t even locate that sucker on the menu. And the crowd dissipated quickly.
Resolved and put on my ToDo list: Search out the camera manual to learn how to take “delayed-time” photos so we can get a group Christmas picture with everyone in it.
A couple of people snapped some pics at Thanksgiving on their phones – and I only got a few pics with my DSLR. Again, it is a new camera to me and I have not taken time to practice the settings, lighting, etc. No surprise that what I later saw (yes, after everyone had left) revealed some really dark photos and I missed getting one of all of us at the table….yadda, yadda, darn!
Resolved and put on the ToDo list: practice with my camera for the lighting, quick snaps and plan ahead what pictures I want so I can switch settings as needed.
And further thinking through Christmas, I know I can at various times just hand my camera to a couple of my grandkids who would love to take photos and just let them “go to town” to snap shots I would totally miss or consider (yep, good ones, too). Plus I will identify a couple of adults who snap good phone photos and ask them to text me any photos they take (this also puts it into their mind to take photos).
Voila! I won’t have to shoulder the full burden of family photographer! It’s a team effort.
Ok, in addition to getting myself into gear, my purpose is to encourage and empower you to get determined to create “return tickets”….to right now prepare and plan to celebrate your and your loved ones’ lives. And not just at Christmas 2021, but every day at events and in daily activities!
What I learned as I recently finished creating the digital album course (titled “Do A Life-Story Album in 3 Easy Steps”) is that we get overwhelmed with 1) trying to document everything, 2) trying to manage way too many photos, and 3) not having a system.
The course emphasizes “thinking like a Film Director” hitting the highlights and key points which richly and faithfully string together our unique story.
But the best part is that once someone goes through this course, they will have a system in place for handling any digital album topic they want to celebrate or preserve.
I can’t wait to share that course with you. Meanwhile, get resolved and ready for creating “return tickets” this Christmas. I am right there with you!
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