“Unable to take photo,
memory card is full.”
“What the hell? I. How
could my memory card be full, I’ve got a two giga-byte micro SD card in there?
I can’t have that many pictures on my phone. Can I?” I thought to myself as I
quickly thumbed to the photo gallery on my phone. When I got to the gallery, I
saw the little icons that read “Camera Roll”, “Folders”, “All Photos” and
videos. Normally I just hit “All Photos” with my thumb, but this time I actually
looked at the numbers next to the folder titles.
“Camera Roll” 683
“Folders” 4
“All Photos” 893”
“Videos” 6
Once
I saw those numbers I knew I had more than my fair share of media I needed to
go through and delete. I started with the videos first, simply because there
were less of them and they take up the most memory… two of the videos were
identical but sent to me by different people, just some youtube stuff of
animals acting like animals. (I really like funny animal videos) There was an
“off-color” video I had forgotten about, an accidental video I took while I was
trying to take a photograph and a video that I had loaded on to facebook. I
deleted all of them.
I
then tried to go through the photos by folders, that didn’t work out too well
because some of the photos are from when I sync my phone up to facebook, email
and even some of my music. So some of the folders within that particular folder
had only one picture, I quickly went back to the “All Photos” folder and opened
it up. I was surprised at the photos I had on my phone.
Each
picture a subtle reminder of a moment in my life, a second I wanted to hold on
to for one reason or another. An experience I wanted to share with others on
some future date or just to hang on to for my own selfish reasons. Of the 893
pictures on the card I tried to classify them as I scrolled quickly through
them, family, work, friends, art, stupid and miscellaneous. This is how I
sorted them in my mind. I then went through each classified photo and tried to
decide if I needed to keep it in my life anymore. This took hours of exhaustive
review.
The
first photos I sent to binary hell… the art photos. Don’t need ‘em and if I
haven’t uploaded them to Google Plus, Facebook or Twitter by now, it is a good
chance I will never do it in the future. Next I went through the stupid photos,
ok, let me say this about stupid photos, I like them and anything can fit into
a stupid photo category. Most of what I call stupid photos though are pictures
you have at least two or three of. You know, the photo you took and it was
over-exposed, too little light, or a finger got in the way… yeah, those. I
trashed most of those too. Bye Bye. Gone with the touch of a thumb. I did
manage to save a few, because not all stupid photos are mistakes, some are just
plain funny. Like the one I have of a friend who was in a very manic mood and I
got a sweet close up shot of their face. You literally can see the insanity of
life dancing in the pupil of their eyes. Of course I’ve been sworn to never
show this picture to anyone so I keep it for myself and I look at it
occasionally and it cheers me up. After all, is not that one of the many
reasons to keep pictures… to make you happy when you are down?
After
the purge of the stupid, I moved to the miscellaneous… most of them didn’t
stand a chance. I felt like a World War II flame throwing infantryman on D-Day.
I literally scorched all the pixilated memories that fell into this category.
It happened quite easily and was done with no remorse. Absolutely none of these
classified photos were able to tug on a heart-string or unearth any buried
memory in my mind. Hell I even tried my damndest to cultivate any emotion that
would stop me. I failed.
Work
photos were next and Friends was on deck. Now, about my work photos, most of
them are technical pictures of things I need to remember when working on a
certain exhibit. In a perfect world I would transfer these instructional aides
to my computer, print them up and put them in little plastic sleeve, then put
those into a three ring binder and place the binder on a shelf. But, if you’ve
seen my office you know all my bookshelves are overflowing with train books,
encyclopedias, dystopian novels, science fiction novels, horror novels and even
some binders with instructional photos in them… but they are filled and refuse
to snap shut anymore. So the ones on my phone, well, they just sit there in
limbo waiting for me to look at them when I need to. I showed mercy. They are
still alive and well and living in my black and plastic digital device. One day
I will transfer them to my computer… not now. All the train pictures… Ok, I
saved those too.
As
for my work mates, well they did not fare as well as the tech photos or train
photos. Most of them are now past tense… the pictures that is not the real,
live, walking, talking, fleshy beings that I come into contact with every day.
My
friends… well, I saved most of those, some got trashed but I value my friends
almost as much as I do my family. Of course some of their more incriminating
photos were saved and locked away so no one can see them. They are in a very
safe place that only I have access to and if any of them ever become a powerful
politician or celebrity… I am going to use them to make sure my life gets moved
to easy street. (Ok, maybe my morality won’t let me do that. SHUH! RIGHT!)
The
last classification… Family…, I did transfer a bunch of these pictures but I
axed most of them. Why? Simple, most family snapshots look terrible and hold
very little meaning to me. Don’t read that improperly, like I don’t care for my
family. I do. Just hear me out, or better yet, take your phone out of your
pocket, purse, bra or whatever you keep it in and scroll on through all the
photos of your family members. But don’t look at them as family members; look
at the composition of the picture. I’ll wait…
Did
you do it?
Good.
Now
tell me, how many of those pictures show a person with their eyes half closed
or fully closed, or someone is in the background photobombing the shot? Or
someone is flipping the bird, or their mouth is open or the look on their face
is that of an irate orangutan? Yeah, I thought so. Please kill those photos and
free up some space. See, these are the pictures I sent away. And you know what…
it felt good.
Good
in a way that I didn’t know existed. It was a purging of ugly and uncared for
moments that have no place in the ever increasing world of ugly and uncaring
digital media. Life is too short to have fond memories destroyed by pictures
that make the ones you care about look like fools. The exception to this rule
is that if you live with clowns or are a member of a circus, then it is
perfectly fine to keep those goofed up photos.
The
result… simple, I went from having 893 photos and 6 videos down to 574 photos
and zero videos. I now have room on my SD card for at least 240 more pictures.
But the real question is, what am I going to do with the pictures I saved and
how in the world will I ever find 240 things to take pictures of?
One
last thing, what kind of memories are you holding on to? Good? Bad? Ugly?
Funny? Sad? Indifferent? Joyous? Tender? Beautiful? Painful?
Have a great week.
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