Last week I was digging under the bed to see what I could pull out of there. I try to clean out the “underbed storage” about every ten or fifteen years. I found a duffel bag that I was looking for just a few months ago. There were coin wrappers and bill straps; unfortunately they were all empty. I saw a shoe box with no shoes in it. And there was a camera bag. Not the big bag that had the big camera, lenses, flash and such. That was in the office. Not the little case that held the palm size digital camera that goes on vacation if I ever go on vacation again. This was a forgotten camera bag with a roll of film (actually a cartridge of film), a strange sized battery, and a claim check from an airline that has since gone out of business. No camera.

I don’t remember the last time I used a film camera. I do remember it was a 35mm camera and not one that used the 110 cartridge. I remember a camera that used that cartridge but I remember it from something like thirty or forty years ago. (I know I cleaned out under the bed since then. I know that because I’ve moved a few times since then.)

I might not remember that camera – and it’s a good thing the camera wasn‘t there because nobody probably still processes those little film cartridges – but I do remember that I used to take quite a few pictures and actually displayed them. I had pictures on walls, on end tables, in bookcases, on desks, even stuck to the front of the refrigerator in magnetic picture frames. Still do. I’ve slowed down in picture taking. Lots of people today take many more pictures than I ever did. But how many of those pictures ever end up as photographs.

So many pictures get taken and are posted somewhere electronically. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But I’ve always thought of a picture as an opportunity to remember someone or something. At work I had pictures on my desk, file cabinets, and walls. They were of my daughter, of She and me, of people from work doing fun things. They were snapshots of things to make me smile usually when I most needed a smile. I remember only three other managers in my building who had personal pictures somewhere in their offices.

Print a picture, pop a stick or chip in a printer at a drugstore, or download a few shots to a digital frame. Don’t make all of your future memories “images.” Take a photo every now and then.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?