Click and save! The camera, on any given digital gadget,
affords us easy and cheap accessibility to photography. Yet, the pertinent
question is: how do we save these moments and memories? If we were to look back
at a generation or two, when photography was a costly affair and photographers
a rare class, photographs were posed for and carefully preserved in albums or
hung around the living room or mantle pieces. In contrast today, thanks to
technology, photographs are being clicked a mile-a-minute and stowed away in a
virtual file. “Photographs of the earlier times were a fact file of family
histories and stories. They were carefully preserved in boxes and later in
albums and frames. It is the best way these memories have been preserved for
posterity. But on the other hand, today, with the mass infusion of technology,
people capture moments and moods as they happen, one that instantly travels to
other parts of the world on social media,” observes art historian Savia Viegas,
who discusses these histories in her forthcoming book, ‘The Family Archives’.
Clicking rather than preserving is the modern day mantra and
despite the fear of ‘digital crashes’, the virtual file is sometimes the only
storehouse. “I click a few photographs every day with my smart phone – either a
selfie, or nature or something interesting and then share them on Facebook and
Instagram. I do save some important ones on my computer with a backup on my
laptop. If I do feel the need for a hard copy, I take a digital print from my
Whatsapp,” shares Mapusa banking student Jerilda Monteiro. Depositing her
‘clicks’ of the day into a collage on her phone and simultaneously sharing on
Instagram and Facebook, Aviation Management student, Zenobia Fernandes from
Candolim believes the virtual album is a handy one which can be scrolled, shown
and shared at any time. To preserve a few, the pen drive or memory card serves
that purpose.
Digital albums are offering a viable alternative. “Digital
albums make it an easier choice to keep what one wants. It helps to save
valuable photos especially when a hard disk crashes. Today, these albums are
gaining popularity, especially for important occasions like a wedding or birth
or a trip,” states Marie-dale Pais, CEO, Photogenic, Margao, who believes that
the presence of an album in the house ‘becomes a point of conversation’.
The sanctity of these memories, whether preserved on real or
virtual space, will continue to tell the stories of their time.
