Christmas photos... or Christmas memories...

Some startling stats projected for 2014:

• an estimated that 1.5 billion smartphone cameras will take nearly one trillion photos – that’s three thousand in the time it took to read this... 
• 300 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day...
• every 2 minutes we take as many photos as the whole of humanity took in the 1800’s... 

 We are flooded with photos.  In my own history, we would take a few pictures of our kids when they were small, make several copies, and send them to the grandparents miles away.  We did this every couple of months, especially at holidays and birthdays, etc...  Photos were not cheap but they were easy.  I started with a little square box from Kodak and have had an Instamatic, several 35mm, a 2x2 professional grade unit, a Polaroid, and a host of forgettable cameras in between.  Although we are all digital now, I still keep my last 35mm Nikon in my desk drawer (but I have not used it for a long time).  We have 14 megapixel cameras for good pictures and the rest of the time, like the hoards of other smart phone users, we just turn to the phone to capture the moment.  During my life I watched the giant whose name was synonymous with photography become an also ran on the side of the road (Kodak) and have seen the Japanese moved from center stage by the products of Korea.  What will the future be like?  If I can guess about it at all, the still image will give way to the movie.  Already any decent digital camera and nearly all smart phones can take movies of much better quality than most motion pictures were for the majority of my life.

Just a question, however.  Not to rain on the photo parade but I wonder if the abundance of photos has enhanced or diluted our memories?  Once we gathered around few photos to refresh our memories by the stories told.  Now I fear that our stories are lost and we are left only with photos.  But what do these photos mean without the stories they capture?  How can they tell us anything unless we also remember the stories the images show?  How will we remember the whole story with only a snapshot of the moment left?

There is clearly no turning back and I am not sure I want to give up all the visual images that define our culture, life, and even faith today.  But I do not hesitate to question how valuable these will be to those who come after us unless we also pass on the sacred memory of individual, family, community, and church.  For instance, it is a nice thing to have a video of a wedding, baptism, confirmation, etc.. and to share it with those who cannot attend.  But at what point does the video become the excuse for not attending?  At what point do we surrender our participation in the actual event for the virtual participation of photo or movie?  When do we realize that no video captures the whole but, like the viewpoint of the individual, only one eye upon what is happening?  Indeed, the video can be manipulated and the photo staged to obscure and change what actually happened?  Photoshop has become a verb for the practice of making image and moving image lie.  Who can tell what is truth unless we at least accompany these images with the story?

I am more and more compelled by the details of the authors of the Scriptures.  Once I thought them ancillary to the larger purpose of the main point but now I am inclined to see these details as themselves the main points in the stories they tell.  Many have suggested that the abundance of details does not detract from the historicity of what Scripture says but, just the opposite, enhances the credibility of the story they tell.  Richard Bauckham is among the current crop of authors who draw attention to the details of the eyewitnesses.  They would remind us that the faith is Word centered and story focused.  I wonder if this becomes hard on us living in a digital age of image and movie that dominate our lives?

Christmas is coming and with it how many bazillion photos and movies posted on social media and sent to family members far and near?  The photos and movies are not the story.  They can be tools to enhance the story but the story remains the central focus -- of family life, culture, community, and the faith.  We dare not forget it or the photos will tell us nothing at all.  I plead with families to share their stories while there are still the elders to pass them on and to the Church, custodian of the memory and keeper of the faith, to do the same.  Tell the story.

A while ago we were at an antique store and there were a number of elaborately framed photos from many generations past.  With them books of photos taken about the same time.  Upon closer inspection we found that the faces were common to both -- the heavily and richly carved frames and the obviously expensive family photo albums.  How sad, however, that they meant nothing to us or to anyone there.  These were merely images with no story.  Whether the family had died or simply discarded these relics of the past, the saddest thing of all is the thought of their stories being gone forever.  The photos remained but they meant nothing without the story.  Surely there is wisdom in this and a lesson to be learned.

In 2014 it is estimated that 1.5 billion smartphone cameras will take nearly one trillion photos – that’s hundreds of thousands of photos every minute (three thousand in the time it took to read this sentence). Three hundred million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day capturing every poignant, funny, strange, exotic and dull moment, from our latest meal, to the TV show we are watching, to the item of IKEA furniture that we just assembled. Every two minutes mankind collectively takes as many photos as the whole of humanity took in the 1800’s. While the digital camera of the late 1990’s provided a freedom that was never known with film, the smartphone camera has gone even further making every person with a phone in their pocket a photographer and turning every location (from the bathroom to the ballpark) into a backdrop. - See more at: http://www.ignitumtoday.com/2013/11/17/too-many-photos-too-few-memories/#sthash.2EgFPMQT.dpufIn 2014 it is estimated that 1.5 billion smartphone cameras will take nearly one trillion photos – that’s hundreds of thousands of photos every minute (three thousand in the time it took to read this sentence). Three hundred million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day capturing every poignant, funny, strange, exotic and dull moment, from our latest meal, to the TV show we are watching, to the item of IKEA furniture that we just assembled. Every two minutes mankind collectively takes as many photos as the whole of humanity took in the 1800’s. While the digital camera of the late 1990’s provided a freedom that was never known with film, the smartphone camera has gone even further making every person with a phone in their pocket a photographer and turning every location (from the bathroom to the ballpark) into a backdrop