Remembering pictures of the past

In my collection of family pictures, I have several that I took from Ma Hughes’ picture box. Some are on heavy cardboard and the people who are posing look like they are embedded in the heavy paper. I have two or three that I think are called “tin types.” They have a metal feel to them, and it is hard to make out the faces of those who at one time were a part of our family. They are pictures of the past. That not only describes the people in the pictures but the way the pictures were printed.

As I look at both black and white photos and colored pictures made a couple of decades ago, I realize that we are at another big change in the way pictures are kept for future generations to enjoy. Not only in the way we keep them, but photos are no longer made with a camera. They are made with a cell phone and stored therein. It doesn’t seem that long ago when a camera was the most important piece of equipment taken for family get togethers, stage presentations, summer picnics, and most important of all on family vacations. By the 1980s if one happened to forget the family camera then it was possible to stop by a variety store and buy a disposable camera.