Through the camera lens…

When I look at the world around me today, I see a lot of amazing things happening. And yet there is something in me that yearns for times that are behind me. The simplest example I think of is cameras. There was a time when it was a cumbersome and extremely precious object, prized and jealously guarded by its owner. Film roll was so valuable that each shot was considered from every angle before actually capturing so as to have a masterpiece. The disappointment when the roll finished and then the breathless wait for it to be developed after which you vowed to carefully preserve them in albums but unfortunately time would cause it to get tarnished to show its age until they became almost unrecognizable. Now with the leaps and bounds of technology, one can see digital cameras small enough to fit in your pockets and what’s more, you don’t even need cameras if you happen to have the latest smartphone with built in cameras, flashlights and countless other features that are enough to make your head spin. There is no need to think twice before clicking a picture when you can always delete it if you think it isn’t good enough. There is no thrill in getting that perfect shot when you know you can try it endlessly till you get it right and there is no mystery left as you can view the picture immediately. We are careless with what we choose to capture and so it doesn’t really inspire us to print them and want to preserve them. We tell ourselves that this is good, in this way we don’t need to pick and choose and can have all the million photographs saved in the computer memory or web albums, look over them all anytime and save the paper that we would have used, to print them. But really think about it, when was the last time you went back and browsed old photo albums stored on your hard disk? Wheras we all still definitely peruse the old hardbound albums from time to time and think back fondly to the moments in each carefully shot photograph (and sometimes even the hilariously gone wrong ones as there was no delete button back then!). Not to say that there isn’t anything good about this new age digital revolution, I just miss the charm of the good old days and just wish we could sometimes go back a few decades and lose ourselves in the simple pleasures of life.