This article, “Lights, Camera, Inaction,” is not really about the tiny, new Flip Video Mino camera, as I thought it was when I chose to read it. Instead, it’s a funny riff by Michelle Slatalla on the urge so many of us feel to archive our lives with photography, and the guilt we thereby create for ourselves when we fail to do it well.
Years went by without pictures. It became too hard to be the family archivist in an age of ever-changing technology, especially for someone like me who fears any gadget more complicated than a cocktail shaker. Every time I tried, a battery died or a memory card went missing or I pushed the wrong button or accidentally taped over someone’s piano recital.
I liked this comment after her oldest daughter complains because there is only one viewable family video left: “She got good at guilt at college,” Slatalla observes. And she demonstrates Read the rest of this entry »
