In a previous blog I shared a photo secret with you. I reluctantly admitted that I have cataloged in chronological order more than 5,000 pictures I’ve taken of my 3-year-old daughter. At first I thought that was an exorbitant number of pictures to have of one child, but that’s before I heard about a mom in Georgia who claims she has snapped more than 8,500 pictures of her 8-month-old baby.
More than 8,000 pictures in 8 months? That’s more than 1,000 photos a month. The mother says she takes her digital camera everywhere and is determined to create a daily photo diary of her daughter. She reportedly takes a picture of her child each time she changes outfits (and has done this ever since her daughter was born). That’s in addition to the shots she has taken of her baby at various parks, stores, and restaurants. The Georgia mom says she wants to remember all of her daughter’s facial expressions—-not just the smiles. Whoa! And I thought I was an avid photographer. I wonder what will happen when this woman has another baby?
But, I digress. The portion of this mom’s tale that made my jaw drop is that she claims she doesn’t delete any of her digital images. Frankly, I don’t see how this is possible. How do you manage all of that data? Moreover, how do you find the time to make sure each shot is properly stored and preserved? Perhaps, I’m just lazy.
(One of the 5000+ pics I have taken of my daughter since her birth.)
Regular readers of this blog know that I dabbled in digital photography for a while, but returned to film for a few reasons, one of which was the fact that I dreaded dealing with the daunting task of sifting through an overwhelming amount of pictures (think double of the 150 pics I currently take on a monthly basis with my favorite film camera). Unlike a film camera, a digital camera allows you to keep on shooting until your finger falls off.
The mom in Georgia says she simply keeps buying new memory cards so she doesn’t have to erase a single shot. Other snap happy moms and dads opt to purchase additional disk drives to archive photos or burn them on CDs. When I shot on digital I used to make prints of my favorite shots and add them to daughter’s baby books.
At the rate the Georgia mom is documenting her daughter the child will have more than 130,000 pictures of herself before she enters high school.
How about you? Are you embarrassed by the amount of digital photos you have of your kids?