Film Vs. Digital

Keeping an online photo site is like keeping a photo album, except not as private.

As a kid, I loved keeping journals and making scrapbooks. They were a way of keeping mementos and remembering past events. They served as an outlet for my personal thoughts. I could easily hide my books under the bed or behind the dresser, and know that they were safe from prying eyes.

The Good Old Days

I remember taking polaroids and getting pictures developed at the store. It was always an exciting time, not knowing how the pictures turned out. Taking pictures and not getting a preview of it is fun! You never know what you’re going to get when you open the envelope. It was nice having the hard copies. I used to post pictures all over my bedroom wall and look at them everyday!

Collage of photos my buddies made me for my birthday. It took forever to make!

The Draw Of Technology

Now I find that I’m falling away from the old-fashioned photo albums and scrapbooks, and being drawn towards online technology. Digital cameras are great, but I do miss my old 35mm film camera. I still keep a scrapbook, but printing out the photos from my digital camera is such a task, I tend to put it off. I rarely get printed out versions of my photos. Instead, I keep my photos on my computer or share them online, where they sit in a folder somewhere.

Digital photography has its benefits though:

• You can choose which photos you want to get printed out, saving loads of money.
• The ability to edit means no more bad photos, hooray.
• You can combine images and add text.
• Fast and easy way of organizing your photos.

The problem with online sharing today is that there’s no privacy. Anyone can access your information. Even things that have security on it have a way of getting out. Don’t get me wrong, the internet is great, especially for sharing information quickly, and that’s a major bonus. Just say goodbye to privacy.

Computers also have a tendency of failing out of the blue, so if you don’t backup your photos, everything could be lost. They say if you have photo albums, you should make a copy of the pictures and store them outside of your home in case of a fire. In the case of a computer failure, you could upload them to a free online photo storage site, like Photobucket or Flickr, and they’ll be there forever. Unless the site goes corrupt of course.

Photographs are probably the most prized possession to most people. They’re irreplaceable, so take good care of them!