No More 3x5s
I steal other people’s pictures. I have pictures all over my house. Oddly, many of the pictures of friends I have were not only not taken by me, but I wasn’t even at the event where the picture taken. I’m not a big picture taker. If I do take pictures, they’re of mundane things or things I see everyday, like my backyard.
I recently went on a short vacation to Mexico. I forgot to even bring a camera. My traveling companions did have theirs, which resulted in the best picture of my boyfriend and I. Ever. It is displayed in places of prominence everywhere I can put it, save on a billboard along the 1-10. Part of me would feel sad had no one brought a camera and I didn’t have that picture. But it wouldn’t have changed the fact that that day happened.
We live like this though. We have a camera at hand all the time thanks to our phones. We snap away focusing on one sense. And it’s not even fully focused. It’s one sense through a digital screen. I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s good enough. We deserve better and need to give that to ourselves.
Even without that picture being taken and a subsequent one of my friend Luis and I looking an ungodly level of relaxed, I have that whole afternoon spent in a Mexican cantina locked away in my mind. Read more…
