LITTLE ROCK — It was a rainy Sunday afternoon. We had planned to do something outside, but a series of phone calls revealed that no one in the family had very much ambition. Soon the basement television was tuned to football and that was the end of any plans to take a hike.

So I spent the afternoon with my photos and that got me thinking - always a dangerous occupation.

I do stuff with my photos that my mother never dreamed of, but I’m only skimming the surface of electronic media, as my kids will gladly tell you. On Sunday, I finally figured out how to add photos to my Facebook page. I never did figure out why.

The truth is, I only have a handful of “Facebook friends” and most of them are probably not going to look at my photos. I wanted to alert my brother and sister in California that I had posted some of our family photos, but I’m pretty sure neither of them are interested in joining Facebook.

The teenage daughter had to show me how to “tag” a photo and then she had to patiently explain what happens after it gets tagged. I was surprised to find out my photo will appear on someone else’s page.

Before I turned the laptop off for the day, there were already comments on my page about the photos. I guess that’s what you do with Facebook; you look at photos you’re tagged in and post a comment. I’ve often kindof wondered about that.

My kids have a different attitude about pictures than I do. When I go to my older daughter’s apartment, I’m struck by the number of pictures all over the walls, many of them arranged in collages. All of her friends are represented, but there are also tons of pictures of her and her longtime roommate.

Yet when I went to choose a “profile” picture for my Facebook page, I couldn’t find a photo of myself. The page prompted me to use my Webcam - raising the age old question: I’m supposed to have a Webcam?

I’m one of those photoshy people and I know first hand how that drives photographers crazy. I just don’t see any reason to have pictures of myself. The one that runs by this column is fine and has been for a number of years. Why change it?

Back when I lived in anapartment with a roommate, we were interested in photography, too. Everybody took the basic photography class in college and we showed off our best black and white prints. But back in the dark ages when I was young, you had to use film and we all learned to develop it and print those old black and whites. It was both time consuming and expensive. I think I took a lot more pictures of trees and birds than people. I thought that made it art.

My kids use digital cameras or their cell phones.

They move the pictures to their computers in only a few seconds and then onto their Facebook pages. (I’ll never understand why it’s so easy for them to do something that took me most of a rainy Sunday, but that’s beside the point.) Sometimes they print them right there on their own computer printers, butsometimes they send them electronically to Wal-Mart or Walgreens for printing. I guess it’s not surprising that they have so many pictures.

Maybe it’s my fault.

When they were growing up, I was obsessed with documenting every milestone with snapshots and then placing those shots into albums or scrapbooks. It was as if I wanted to have proof in case someone accused us of being unhappy.

I still do it, although now my scrapbooks are often made on a Web site that puts the photo directly on the page with the caption.

It’s not as creative as the trimming and gluing and pasting that used to go with my scrapbooking, but it’s fast and not very expensive.

I have two shelves full of scrapbooks and photo albums in my living room, as well as the boxes full of photos that haven’t made itinto a scrapbook or album and a box of CDs full of photos that haven’t even made it to be printed. I have even made a couple of slide shows and saved them to CDs. What will happen to all that photographic history when I’m dead? How will the kids divide up those endless albums of birthday parties, little league games and dance recitals?

But if cleaning out my pictures will be a chore, I can’t imagine what will happen to the thousands of photos my kids are collecting. Will Facebook fill up someday? Will we harm the environment by leaving behind all those printed photos? Will we ever have nice weather on a Sunday so we can go for a hike and stop obsessing over photographs?

Reporter Lynn Atkins can be contacted by e-mail at lynna@nwanews.com.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 10/28/2009

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