One Million Pictures Deleted

Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it feels true. Over the past day or two, I have been taking on the rather daunting task of sorting all of the pictures on my computer. I’ve had my computer for nearly four years, and at this point, the sheer quantity of the pictures saved makes it a bit scary to even want to go back and look through pictures to reminisce. In pursuit of having a more manageable amount of pictures to deal with, I’ve been deleting the bad ones away happily.

Now, with the advent of digital cameras, after four years, anyone is likely to have far more pictures on their computer than they could ever use or need, including many that didn’t turn out well. My problem, however, is somewhat exacerbated by the nature of my personal photographer.

He’s my personal photographer because of the fact that he’s my husband, more than any reason of skill or talent with a camera. Anyone who knows Angel knows that when he has a camera in his hand, he will take pictures constantly. Often without focusing, without aiming, without waiting for people to smile or look at the camera, and without using the flash. This is results in occasionally a very good or very funny candid photo, but, more often than not, a not very good candid photo. So, I have hundreds of pictures from every event that we’ve gone to that are rather unusable, from a scrapbooking or posting-on-facebook point of view.

I decided to include some examples of pictures that didn’t make the cut. Besides this post, they’ll be deleted, along with many more like them, and many megabytes of memory will be set free. 

Now, while I recognize that this characteristic of Angel’s is not necessarily something inherently endearing, I can help but smile as I click through the pictures on my computer. Because this incessant and careless picture taking is part of who my Angel is. The fact that he never wants to use the flash is a quirk that belongs to him, and when I come across blurry, dark pictures, I miss my man even more.

Maybe it’s because we’re still in the “romance” stage, or maybe it’s because he does always get a few good pictures in at every event, but when I see a picture that he takes of himself and even he doesn’t look at the camera, all I can think is, yep, that’s my Angel.