Friday, August 31, 2007

Instant Gratification

Remember when you loaded film into your camera, took twelve or twenty-four or thirty-six exposures (almost certainly one or two photos at this birthday party, the Little League game, vacation--but not numerous shots of the same thing!) and then carefully removed the film and mailed it off to Skrudland Photo Service in Seattle?

Lo and Behold , two or three weeks later your pictures were developed and miraculously sitting in your mailbox, waiting for you to look at them.

Fast forward forty years.

Now we grab our digital camera. We think nothing of firing off numerous exposures of the same thing, hoping to get that "perfect" picture for our Christmas cards. Heck, why not, it doesn't "cost" anything to shoot twenty or thirty exposures instead of that one or possibly two we would have taken in the "old days." We grab our laptop, insert the memory card, and right before our eyes we have the photos we just shot, ready for our viewing. Instant gratification!

Change. It's inherent. And sometimes it's even good!

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