This is a Panasonic LUMIX ZS25 Compact Long Zoom. It takes 16 MP pictures, has full HD video and has 20 times zoom. All that and it neatly fits in my pocket. Settings include Intelligent Auto and manual exposure and scene modes for everything from portraits to sports to a starry sky. And there’s a self-timer.
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- with Intelligent Auto
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- with Manual Focus
I’m still familiarizing myself with what this camera can do. But, while I know it can capture memories, I know it can’t keep them for me.
Long ago, my Uncle Lawrence had a Kodak Brownie and a passion for taking pictures. Not only did he capture the moment, he had the film printed and he wrote in pencil on the back of the picture. Sometimes it was only the date. Sometimes it was more.
“1937, taken from the Thames River near the lighthouse”
Nowadays we don’t need to worry about dating a picture, except to make sure the camera’s date and time are set correctly. But we do need to record more than the picture. Ironically, there are so many pictures taken, that the story behind those pictures can be buried. There is a saying in the scrapbooking world: Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be jpegs.
Of course, there is photo software to organize and write about your pictures. But as long as the pictures are digital, it can all be lost in a shuffle of electrons. The rule of thumb is that the photo does not exist unless it is in three places: your computer, an external hard drive and the cloud.
But we need to do more than that. We need to print a few. Just a few. And put them in an album of some kind and give them some words. Yes, a picture is worth a thousand words, but give the picture at least some little caption.
We are trying to figure out who is in this picture. We have an idea of the town. 
But wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone had thought to scribble a date on the back?
My mother framed a lot of pictures. Her walls were lined with framed pictures. She wrote notes on the back of each frame. Without the words, you are left with a pretty frame and an interesting picture, but no idea of your connection to the people in that picture.
How about you? Do you take a lot of pictures? Do you have a system for recording the events and the people in your pictures? Are your memories buried in jpegs?
photo of camera from panasonic.com
I love taking pictures; I never leave home without my camera. After my father pass away; my mother went through all the pictures and she made each one of us a scrapbook starting with our grandparents right up until we got married. I keep adding to this book and one day my son will have it has a keepsake. Of course the cover is pink with a poem written about me, that my mother wrote; so inside I added a poem for my son. Happy snapping Suzanne; your next novel just might come from one of those photos. 🙂
Sue – Your mother has created a beautiful treasure!
I have great plans for making photo books but somehow my plans fall to the bottom of the To Do list. However, I do make a Christmas “photo” letter each year. I pick about 10 favourite photos, write a little caption for each, and that’s the Christmas letter. Ostensibly, it’s for the relatives, but it’s also a record for me. I keep copies of the letters in binders for my sons.
I used to religiously write on the back of printed photos – probably because my mother instilled it into me. There’s nothing more frustrating than having old photos and not knowing who’s in them, or where/when it was taken. As I’ve recently been blogging my travels from 20 years ago, I’m thankful I captioned the photos in the album, even if I don’t have a digital version for the post!
Now that I’m all digital, I confess I’ve become very slack with labelling and printing photos. So it’s a good thing I blog right away, which gives me a record of where and when at least. It’ll hopefully be enough if ever I need to go through them later. If/when I ever get around to uploading to facebook , I caption them there too.
Thought-provoking post, Suzanne!
Ellen – As we’ve switched to the digital age, we are all guilty of not recording the details. For many of us, our “scrapbooks” live online in blogs and Facebook. For the first 2 years of my blog, I used Blog2Print to make a hard copy of my posts. I still need to do Year 3. Need to move that up on the To Do list.