Too Many Photos, Too Few Memories

Only a few decades ago, taking photos was tedious business. The cameras were largely manual and not exactly cheap. Film had to be paid for and processing it took time, legwork and, yes, more money.  It was only the relatively well heeled who could indulge their passion for it and clicking good photos took some understanding of the camera and its settings..  Photography thus had both class and knowledge barriers attached to it. Perhaps it is this relative difficulty involved in taking photos that made people attach a higher value to the end product. I still leaf through my mother’s photo albums of the 1950s and 1960s with a sense of awe and reverence. The black and white photos, most of which are tiny in size compared to today’s prints, were neatly pasted in albums that had paper as the base. The paper made it easy for my mother to write the captions below the photos thus ensuring that even half a century later, after the photos had faded,  and even if my mother was not present t