Digital Photography - Saving Feelings Everywhere

The other day I found myself explaining the concept of film photography to my nine-year-old son.  We received our first digital camera as a gift the day he was born, so his entire life has been spent sans film.  The concept was totally foreign to him.  "You had to get pictures from a store, and it took how many days?!?"

This caused me to reflect on the number of pictures we take thanks to the digital age.  Growing up I went through 2 or 3 film cameras.  My first was a Kodak Disc that I got when I turned 8.  Through the years I probably went through only 1-2 discs, or rolls, of film per year.  So over 14 years I'd estimate I took no more than 1,000 photos, probably far fewer.

The Awesome Kodak Disc

We all know how great digital photography is.  No need to extoll its virtues here.  Even so, it's amazing to see what a difference a little convenience makes when you can take a virtually unlimited number of pictures, and there's no cost to "develop" them anymore.  I think these numbers speak for themselves.

That's a lot of photos!

I think this chart has a couple of takeaways.  One is that there's an unmistakeable growth trend here.  Judging by that cumulative quantity, if I live another 40 years I will have taken over 126,000 photos by the time I die.  Who needs that many pictures?  Maybe it's time to reign in the old shutter finger.

Another takeaway is to consider the blessing of digital storage.  Had I taken and developed every single one of these photos as a 4"x6" print, and stashed them in photo storage boxes, I'd be storing 24 boxes (12"x8"x5") full of prints.  That's 6 2/3 cubic feet of space!  No thanks - I'll stick with keeping my 70 GB of photos conveniently on my pocket-sized hard drive.

The most encouraging thing about these numbers is the per-capita counts over the years.  When our second son came along my wife was deeply concerned with him getting as much attention, as many photos, as big of a scrapbook, etc.  Equality was king.  Conventional wisdom, and experience from our family lives growing up, suggests that parents have less time to focus on later children.  At one time this translated to a deficiency of photos featuring younger children in the family.

Luckily for us, the digital age has overcome this parental failing.  Here's the breakdown of the average number of photos per person over the years:

• 3 family members = 550 photos / person
• 4 family members = 636 photos / person
• 5 family members = 707 photos / person
• 6 family members = 1,142 photos / person
• 7 family members = 1,710 photos / person

Even as the family has grown, each child's share of the family photo stash has not shrunk.  Future crises of self esteem?  Averted!