Holding on to Your Memories

Do you like to travel?    I know. Silly question! Everyone likes to get away for a vacation.

When you are going on a trip (whether it is to grandma’s house or somewhere romantic like a great weekend in Paris, France) if you are like me, you always take your camera. 

Like a lot of people, I have several cameras.  I have a small one that I keep in my purse for those every-day moments. It is not a great camera. It cost under $150.00. But it takes decent pictures.  It is good for capturing those candid shots that you don’t normally get. Next, I have what I call my going-on-an-outing camera. It is a bit more expensive but takes awesome shoots. Equipped with an automatic zoom, it is perfect for under $600.00.  Finally, like everyone who likes to pretend she is a professional photographer, I have what I call: “the big gun”. I rarely bring it.  When I have it out, I am paranoid.   It takes great pictures, but it is a pain in the rear. It does not automatically focus, and it has too many lenses and gadgets to be useful—unless you are trying to capture that far-away shot of your child running across the countryside.

Why am I boring you about cameras? 

I do have a point! 

Be patient. When there is a point, there is always a giveaway.  It is Monday. On Mondays, Richly Middle Class likes to give you something great for the week.

When I lived in Japan, back in those prehistoric days, we had this thing called film.  Most adults remember film.  First of all, you had to remember to have a lot of it on hand.  Then, you had to be sure that you stored it properly.  And… Wait for it!…if you wanted to see what pictures you took, you would have to drop the film off at your local store and hope they were running a special for double prints.  Let’s not talk about the boxes and boxes of picture that you had stored in a closet somewhere.   All those photo boxes were labeled by year, month, occasion and whatever else you needed to write on the box to help you retrieve those special moments.  

Don’t get me wrong! Film was great.  When you picked up your prints it was like Christmas. You never knew what you were going to get (or what you would not get if the person processing the film did not know what he was doing!)  

And then came… TECHNOLOGY!  The digital age.   I still remember being poor and purchasing my first Sony digital camera.  My credit card screamed, “YOU IDIOT! DON’T DO IT! It will take you years to pay off this camera!”  I did not listen. I signed my name to a credit card slip. (You know: the one that slides back and forth?) I was the proud owner of a $986.32 digital camera. 

Over time, the technology improved.  Cameras got less expensive. Memory cards now have up to 32GB space.  That is a lot of happy memories.

Recently, a friend  went on an awesome family vacation with camera in tow.  One of the things that we NEVER think about is losing our cameras.  Back in the day, when you lost your camera, you would lose one or two rolls of film along with it. Today, with memory cards—especially if you have a big one—you could have years of photos stored on that card. 

Here are some tips for when you are traveling:

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•  If you take more than one memory card with you, don’t store them all in your camera bag.  Leave the extra ones in your luggage.
•  Have a memory card just for travel.  Do not take the ones that you use at home. If you lose your camera or it is stolen, you lose only the memories of that vacation, not a lifetime of other pictures. 
• If you are somewhere and you ask someone to take a photo. Once she gives your camera back, secure your camera before walking off. Don’t walk around with it in your hand. You could accidentally drop it or set it down somewhere.
• If you like to walk around with your camera out so you can snap, snap, snap away, invest in a strap that will secure the camera around your neck.
• If you don’t want to buy a second memory card just for vacations, make sure that you download your images before you travel so you don’t risk losing them on vacation.

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Creating and sharing new memories is a wonderful thing.  Cameras afford us the opportunity to do that.  When you are travelling, make sure that you protect your memories.

To help you preserve your memories, Richly Middle Class will be giving away a SanDisk 8GB High Capacity Card to the first four people who tell us say: “Richly Middle Class Cares about My Memories.”  

Hope you are having a great Monday!