Treasures

As we go about our lives, we collect treasures.  Most people collect something: it may be baseball or hockey cards, art, ceramic bowls, marbles, crystals, figurines, teacups, matchbooks, stamps or coins, pinned insects, small mammal skulls, orchids, sea shells, or whatever.  Over the years, I've collected many different things.  Some collections have been passed on to my kids or simply given away to others.  Currently, I collect digital  photographs.  My own, mainly.

Well, I don't really 'collect' them.  I just make all sorts of images and save them.  Way too many of them, I guess.  But, unlike many of my other collections, my photographs don't take up very much space in my home, especially now that my images are digital.  Someday, I may even convert all my old negatives, prints, and 35 mm to the digital format as well.  It would certainly mean less dusting and free up some space for other things.

Digital images definitely are easier to share.  For example, I can go to the birthday party of one of my grand-children and take a series of photos and, within hours, save the best images onto CDs which I can then distribute to the parents and grand-parents.  Some images, I may print and stick on the fridge door to show off to visitors to my home.  Some, I may post to this blog or my Facebook page for my friends to see; others, to my Flickr page for the world to see.

Why do I collect photographic images?  Good question.  Maybe, I do it because I have a need to create something that either pleases me or someone else?  Maybe, so the images will serve to bring to mind memories of good times I've had or good places I've been?  Maybe, because I sometimes see something out there that most people do not and I want to record it and show it to them?