Dear LPG,

The picture that I have sent to you was not taken out on some African plain in the sunset.  I took it from a window in a ward in Lewisham hospital one evening while visiting a friend there.

I just want to point out how beautiful our world is, regardless of whichever part of it we are lucky enough to be able to see God’s sky from.

I think that in our world where things happen so fast, when we are young we are unable to find the time and opportunity to appreciate it properly.  Many of us have smart phones in our pockets these days and I would like to suggest that after learning how to use yours as a phone and a minicomputer, the next challenge should be to learn how to use the camera on it.   Once you have mastered it you can take some truly spectacular pictures.

Every now and then we see the trouble that the Victorians and Edwardians had to go to in order to achieve a result, the time it all took in those days and the very staid results that they achieved (►►►).   Then there were the days of the Kodak box brownie cameras (►►►) that we used when on holiday and for special occasions, mostly black and white in those days.  Do you remember the wait while we all took the rolls of film to the Chemist to be developed, before the breakthrough of the instamatic camera? 

Today we have no excuse for missing the moment, because even if we have no expertise when it comes to picture taking, the results that can be achieved on a camera that is nearly always in your pocket are so good.  We have no excuse for missing the moment.  Most phones will also allow mini video shots to happen although we then need to get the films off the phone so that we have space to take more. (My children help with that)

I just think that we are so lucky to be able to record our lives and see them in such detail weeks, months and years later.  I hope that when I am too old to do anything else, I will at least be able to use them as a memory tool.  I look at the few pictures of my grandparents that I have, where I can see what they looked like but had to rely on my parents’ to fill in so many gaps for me. If my great great grandchildren are interested, the pictures that I have taken as I travel through my life are going to give them a much more detailed idea of who I was and what I did.

So, if you have one of those little digital cameras, or a phone with a camera app on it, don’t miss the opportunity to catch some of your life in pictures.

BN, Downham.

LPG found some additional information …     (►►►)   (►►►)