Sermon on the Mount

I was recently searching through some old folders of my images that I have stored on my external hard drive.  I came across this image and was surprised that I haven't seen it since the day I took nearly ten years ago.  I am certain that I must have many more interesting images lost in the numerous folders on the six or seven external hard drives I have sitting on my desk.  The photographic image that is stored digitally is prone to being lost in the many folders created and to storage equipment that has become outdated.  I have hundreds of DVDs with many images that I have made over the years but my new Mac computer no longer has a DVD drive.  Cellphones are the camera most used by young people today.  Pictures are taken and uploaded to social media sites that have a lifecycle of a few moments and then are lost in a place we call cyber space.  The printed photograph is fast become a thing of the past.  Think how important the recorded document has been to learning about past civilizations.  In our current digital culture we are the most recorded and documented people to have ever lived, but the future generations may not find much preserved documentation of our time because of they way we store it.  The family photo album has been lost to our desire to store everything digitally.  When I look at the few old photographs of my grandparents taken in the early nineteen hundreds I have a great appreciation that they were made and survived the many years.  I find value in the printed image and make it a practice to print the images that inspire me photographically, as well as print the small family photos for future generations to have a recored document of their family history.