Monday's Moments

I spent a lot of time researching cameras for one of my stories today. I know nothing about good cameras, and that no doubt slowed my research. However, I finally decided my hero uses a Hasselblad 503CW and either a Linhof Master Technica or a Mimiya (sp).

But, it got me thinking. Can we really capture a moment?

With the advances in photography, specifically with digital imaging, we can take loads of pictures and almost instantly upload them and arrange them in electronic albums. This is a lot easier and cheaper than the pictures I have in the plastic sleeve pages of my "old fashioned" albums, or the even older static pages.

Yesterday, I took several pictures at a baby shower. The mother-to-be glowed as she opened presents, and the father, well let's just say his excitement was less noticeable. After all, we forced him into staying while a few other guys were watching football in the back room.

And once the baby is born, there will be many other pictures: of the birth, his hospital stay, his room, his feedings, people holding him, his first steps, and so on. Moments that might've been lost without a camera at the ready.

Or would they be lost? Time and memory might slowly fade the joys the pictures try to show us, but I have many, many memories which are (at least for now) as sharp and vivid as the event itself. When I'm 80, will a picture bring the emotions back to me? When I'm gone, with those emotions die with me, or will someone pick up an old photograph, or see the picture on a computer screen and think, "That's a happy moment."

I hope I leave behind a million happy moments.

Jessie