Photo Worthy

-by Matt Leedham

For nearly three weeks in Korea, the 6 of us (my in-laws, my wife’s sister and husband, and my wife and I) took over 3,000 pictures of our experience. Even I was impressed, and I like to take pictures.

I volunteered to take on the responsibility of sorting through the pictures, organizing them, and distributing them. After hours of work, I am almost done.

There were beautiful pictures...

There were heartwarming pictures...

There were multi-generational pictures...

There were funny pictures...

This morning, I asked my wife why it is that we took so many pictures. She gave the obvious answer…we want to remember the good times we had. Fair enough.

But I had more questions. Why were those moments so memorable? Why take pictures of the memorable moments? If they are memorable, won’t we remember them? Is it because they were unique and we want to share them?

I began to question why we don’t take 160 pictures per day all the time. Why don’t we want to capture every moment? Why aren’t we as proud of or as interested in every moment? Do some moments carry more weight? Are they more important?

I feel blessed that I am fortunate to have a camera and a desire to write because I feel that I have documented our Korean adventure quite well and we’ll be able to enjoy both the pictures and the stories for many years. But I am left questioning the importance of recording and capturing every other moment in my life.

Some people have taken on a challenge of a picture a day for one year, like our good friend Jeff Drongowski. Others have taken on that challenge but for longer, like Dave Lesh who speaks on the topic frequently.

The idea is to take one picture per day that captures the essence of how you felt or what you experienced. It’s more challenging than you might think, but the experience, according to them, changes your perspective on life. In fact, you end up creating more memorable moments so that you can record them.

We have limited time on this earth. Are you making the most of it? Is every moment, even during your daily routine, special and memorable? Don’t you think it should be? Capture it, record it, write about it, share it with others, and appreciate every experience you have.