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Remembering the way we used to share photos

3 min read

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Spring cleaning got started a little late at my house, but at least it’s done. After going through boxes and plastic totes of belongings that used to be in storage, I can proudly say that my entire house is organized and “redd out.” Well, don’t go into the attic – that’s a project I’ll tackle someday. Other than that, everything is where it belongs and the clutter is finally gone.

As I was cleaning the other day, I found a bunch of boxes of old photos and I wound up trying to clear out duplicates and organize the rest.

As I rummaged through the stash, I came across old class photos from my and my brother’s days in elementary and middle school. I don’t know what they do for class photos these days, but back then they would put together a composite of each homeroom with every student plus the homeroom teacher and principal. They also sent you a few pages of your own photo in little pocket-sized versions about 2 inches by 2 inches.

After I stopped laughing at the many years of various hairstyles and stages of missing teeth from kindergarten through grade school, it dawned on me that this was the old way that we “shared” photographs. Was this the first form of social media? We had pages of these little photos to cut apart, give away and share with family and friends. You would write your name and a little message on the back and give it away, thus “sharing” with your friends and family.

By the time you reached high school, you had an entire box full of everyone’s little pictures showing them growing up with you through the years. In high school, we moved on to the yearbook, which rounded up everyone’s photos in one place. But senior year found us all sharing our senior portraits with anyone and everyone.

I have more than a dozen photo albums full of pictures from throughout my life, but there are hundreds of other photos that I’ve taken with my phone. I try to download all of these to my computer and save them on an external hard drive, and I’ve even made some of them into photo books. So many of them are just there in digital limbo – not stored in a photo album to open and browse or printed out to display.

I take so many more photos now since my phone is always with me, but I don’t print out the pictures like I used to even a few years ago. Maybe I just have way too many photos for one person! I’m sure you’re in the same boat.

I don’t know what the solution is, but I know that I won’t stop taking pictures anytime soon. At least I don’t have to cut each individual one out and write my name on the back to be able to share it with friends!

Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.

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