Forgotten: Captured Images

Before social media and Smartphones, I often forgot to bring my camera on vacations. If I did remember pack one, I forgot to bring it on our daily excursions. If I did remember to bring it on our daily excursions, I forgot to use it.

I preferred to write about my experiences and relied on my memories to bring to mind what happened. I never knew what to do with all those pictures anyway. Somewhere there is probably undeveloped film. Or maybe unused film.

Would I rely on my memory now? Oh, no! Not now.

I recently took a picture of a carpet sample and added text to the photo with the palette's identifier and color's name and number. I will remember the details now because I "wrote it down" over the image.

I realize that I probably have more images of my poems and pictures on my phone than I ever had when I was growing up. I get the reason people wrote on the back of pictures the people, the place, the date, maybe even the time before we had technology to do it for us. I understand how a picture can say a thousand words, but why I still need words to remember the reason for taking the picture in the first place.