I’ve been a huge fan of pulling out the camera and recording my life for many years now. I think based on my experiences in doing so, I am inspired to share my insight on why you should become a fan as well. Lets dive right in:
1. Life is short
We live in such a fast paced world these days that we often forget how fast time really goes by. I know for me, it felt like as soon as I graduated high school, my life has doubled in speed and just flown past me so far. If life is so short, shouldn’t we be challenging ourselves to make the best of the time we have?
2. Home videos are even more accessible
We (thankfully) no longer have to live in the days of 2mp flip phone cameras, ginormous handycams, developing our photos at Walgreens, or worrying about pixelation.
Almost every piece of technology we use on a daily basis has a camera. (Phones, laptops, tablets, MP3 players, etc.) Each device we utilize only seems to get cheaper and cheaper as time goes on, meanwhile the quality of the camera inside these devices keep improving. At the same time, we can take the photos or videos that we capture, and share them straight to a stream of different locations. Which leads me to my next point...
3. Storing photos/videos has never been easier
It seems like every year, storage options also get cheaper and cheaper. I remember a 1TB hard drive costing more than $500 5-10 years ago. Now you can pick one up at a local electronic store for $50-70.
With all this development, something new has emerged in the last few years that makes life even easier: cloud storage. It used to be a scary thing to actually trust computers with your data being “somewhere up in a cloud in space” or however they say it, but with the advancement and support behind these resources, it only gets safer and safer. You can now get the same 1TB of space from Dropbox for only $10 a month, with no contract, no cancellation fees, or anything. Google Drive is also a great and similar option that may work more seamless for you based on your accounts and devices.
Some people might not want to trust social media platforms for keeping photos and videos, but I’ve learned to just upload, then delete from my phone. To me personally, the quality of the file that gets uploaded to something like Facebook right from my phone, is good enough for me in the future (unless I’m working with much larger files, projects, etc). Especially now that Facebook must remind you what happened on this day in every past year, uploading your memories there is an even greater internet based photo album.
4. The more you capture, the more you want to go do
Do you ever notice that the more time you spend on something, the better/faster/easier that certain task becomes?
I find capturing photos/videos to be the same. The more I record them, the more I want to record them. Sort of like getting addicted to a new social media platform...the more you use it, the more you want to use it. Which, just fuels creativity for HOW you want to use them. It makes you want to go to new lengths to capture certain things. What beats gathering some people you love spending time with having an idea of something you’d like to capture, and going out and making it happen? There’s countless memories to be made…and at the end of the day:
5. You can never have enough memories
I don’t think this is even a question. Memories are the joy of life. They are what we reflect on when we’re having a good time, when we screw up, when we accomplish our goals, when we meet new people, when we build families, and so on. Bottom line… you can never have enough memories.
To rewind back to my first point…..life is short. And if you have the accessibility to capture more memories, while continuing to be even more in a convenient way, why not?
-B