For years I’d carried around a photo album, blue in color, a picturesque mountain scene adorned its cover, earth tones of course, a lithograph I believe. Three ringed, cellophane covers over sticky pages to hold in those captured moments.

The vessel, to contain these memories, was painstakingly selected from a large corrugated cardboard box holding many like it, but none other within could hold true to the journey recently completed. A salmon colored binder, emblazoned with a bouquet of flowers obviously could not relay the proper initial excitement to those who would look through its inner workings, to be presented with another’s personal history.

Children frolicking in the park or a plump baby, a wingless cherub smiling between bouts of crying, dried snot having been cleaned away, likewise offered the wrong message to the viewer.

Like a musician rifling through boxes of paperboard covers full of vinyl records, pulling one up from amongst the many, tipping it forward slightly assessing its worthiness, making a mental calculation, “What does it say?” and “Will it aptly describe the experience?”

“This won’t do.” or “Hell no! What’s a fluffy cat chasing a ball of yarn got to do with it?” Letting it drop back into its slot, fingering through the row of next possibilities, the hopeful search continues…. Continue reading “Digital vs Print Photography, Killing Time in Jakarta.”