Digital simplicity

Last year, one of my treasured possessions – a hard disk with my complete digital photo archive – crashed.  I do have backups, but this was the ‘Mother HDD’, with every file slotted, tagged and organized by date, time, folder. When it comes to my digital archive I suffer from a serious case of OCD, and then some.

I was miserable but was lucky enough to be able to retrieve most of the data – over 9 GB worth of photographs.  But sadly, when I opened the new hard disk, I realized that I had to reorganize, re-tag and re-slot every single file.  Most names and references to date and time were gone though some files were untouched.  It’s been a long year. Phew!

However, through this entire archival journey, I got to relive some of the best moments in my life –  working life, marriage, children and friends.  When I look back, I realize how many wonderful moments life has thrown at me, and the many lessons I have learned along the way.

Thankfully, I am on the last leg of this arduous re-archival journey.  Very soon, I will let out a whoop of joy and probably weep tears of sheer relief from the monotony of this task, that has bitten-off huge chunks of my free time.

This afternoon, as I sifted through the last 2000 files, I chanced upon these photos.  These are photos of my son’s Grade 1 school notebook.  The teacher seems to have rewarded my son with  ‘smileys’ for his efforts in writing.  My son has converted the teacher’s smileys into a couple of cute animals, with ears and tails.  Sharing these photos with you.

 

My digital drill seems to have been worth it.  After all, such simple moments are the ones that need capturing.  These are the moments that make up the mosaic of our lives. Simple moments of love, joy and innocence, captured for posterity.

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‘Colour’ & ‘Black & White’

A couple of days ago, I took this shot of a temple’s gopuram (tower), for it looked so majestic against the blue sky.

I came home and played about with the photo on my photo editor and gave the picture a sepia tone. And this is how it looked.

On seeing the image, I was immediately transported to a long-ago time, where monochrome ruled our lives.

Of old albums with lacquer covers, and black mounting sheets, on which fathers and moms, meticulously captured family history, baby photo-diaries and lots more.

Where there was no ‘digital’, only ‘physical’.  Photos that aged with a yellow sepia tone, capturing moments from our childhood – big ribbons and pretty frocks, sometimes dressed exactly like our siblings. Seeing a younger version of our parents and a time in their lives before ‘us’, their children.

I am sure most homes have at least one of these old albums, which captured family history and memories.

We will never know the colour in those pictures, but we do have a strong emotional connect with them. In our album we have many such wonderful photos – there is a photo of my husband and his brother on a scooter, my dad and his friend standing on our lawn, with a guitar, my sisters and I, dressed in identical skirts, and smiling at the camera!

The culture of physical albums is fast fading; now, it is all about digital archiving, and having the flexibility to edit memories and tell whatever stories one wants!

All pictures are copyrighted to http://www.simplemomentsoflife.wordpress.com

The Curious Case Of The Grazing Sheep

I am spring cleaning my digital cupboard today. A virtual cupboard distributed around the house, across numerous phones and laptops and tablets.  How did we manage to hoard so many files? Music, photos…phew! Millions of them. Selfies…(who started this trend?). My eyes hurt with clearing up.

I am ready to give up within the hour. Maybe I should take this up device-by- device. With that decision made, I feel less daunted.

As I browse through the photos, a couple of them from late last year make me smile.

A couple of years ago, we picked up a unique chess set from New Zealand, during our holiday there.

The chess board has green and yellow squares and all the pieces are sheep – black sheep (ha ha) and white sheep.

I treasure this chess set a lot; and my kids are banned from using it to play chess – as the material from which the set is made is breakable.

Late last year, my little nephew came to visit. After having his milk in the morning, he would walk around the living room. I conducted conversations with him from the kitchen, as I experience the ‘mom-goes-crazy-every-morning’ syndrome, and was usually tied-up with my chores.

When the children left for school and I sat down for a breather, I was amused to see that the sheep had started grazing in the meadow. My ‘no-one-touches-this-chess set’ policy flew through the window.

This picture was taken that day.

So everyday, till he was with us, my little nephew grazed his sheep in the green and yellow meadow.