Here’s a photo of a puppy.
Ain’t it just adorable?
Of course it is! Everyone likes pictures of cute puppies.
But why am I showing you this photo? Because I’m proud of it.
No, not so much for its photographic technique but because I’m rather chuffed about the subject matter and everything that goes with the birth of a litter. Not surprisingly, over the last few months I took many cute pictures for reasons which include not only tracking the puppies’ development but also for advertising: many served as “product photos” (harsh as this may sound) because most of the puppies were put on the market.
Then there’s the aspect of personal memories.
Much in the same manner that proud parents take countless pictures of their children (whose numbers tend to diminish as the novelty wears off), photos serve as reminders of what the offspring looked like at a certain age because “they grow up so fast”. They will never look the same again.
Photos and the memories behind them are priceless – for a period.
With that said and now that certain affairs have been gotten in order and the puppies are bigger, I can return to the project of digitising my photo albums and consolidating what amounts to a rough count of over 8000 photos. There are duplicates, some are plain rubbish, and there are others that have completely lost all purpose and meaning over time.
Consequently, many are being deleted, and this has made me ponder about what it is that makes us take photos in the first place.
