Okay, you should still take pictures.
While visiting my brother in one of my very first National Parks, he took charge of my camera and made sure I took the moments in first hand. I didn’t watch anything through a lens. He wanted me to be truly immersed in the experience and never lose that opportunity because I was too focused on documenting it.
(I also realized I did this through binoculars a couple times too! While watching a big cow moose wade into a river, I had them glued to my eyes. When I took them away, I was blown away by just how close she was and how much I could see from being so far away!)
In a world where our phones are our cameras, portfolios, and means of sharing with others, we spend a lot of our time trying to convey to others what our lives look like. Scroll through someone’s Instagram. Usually, if they have any depth at all, within a few scrolls through pictures and reading captions, you learn a whole lot about these people. So we take time to make sure we get a good shot to show off.
Since learning this, I have made it a point to pause before I take out my camera. If I love a sight so much that I’m anxious to capture it and store it in my memory forever, I want to be sure that I remember it, not that I remember taking a picture of it. I do still take pictures, and I’m glad I do (mostly because my memory is horrible these days). But I’m even more dedicated to be aware of the moments before they become filed away in the scrapbooks of my life.
(This article also serves as an apology for the amount of pictures I’m going to post once I get back home from Africa! Being without service for two weeks will make it all come out at once, I’m sure).
You don’t have to be taking in the Grand Canyon for it to be worthy of remembering. Take it from Jim and Pam: mental picture-worthy moments can happen anywhere.
Xo,
Lauren