Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Theme Thursday: Time

What a serendipitous theme for the week of Harrison's birthday. Eight years have passed since his birth -- ack -- and while it's hard to admit the quick passage of time in terms of his growth and development, it's easy to see how much he has changed. But I digress. My real point of this post is not my child, but the changes in technology in the eight years since I began to chronicle his life.

In 2000, I did not have a digital camera. In fact, my film camera had no zoom, no flash control, no focus. I turned it on, pointed it at my subject, and pressed the button. In 2000, the new-fangled thing was getting your pictures developed and having the option of having the developer put them on a floppy disc. You heard it here first, folks -- I was on the cutting edge.

When I went to dig up a baby picture of Harrison for this post, I realized that the first two years of his life are in albums and on floppies. Hmmm....my computer doesn't have one of those drives anymore. Sigh. Another summer project in the making. In 2002, when Harrison was two years old, the CD revolution came to the local photo processing place and I now had my pictures on CD. However, when I uploaded a couple of them yesterday, I realized how grainy they are (not to mention noticing my less-than-stellar photography skills).

I'm glad I have the hundreds of pictures in albums and on the grainy, almost non-retrievable floppies, but part of me wishes I could go back and reshoot those pictures with my kicked up DSLR.

Time...it marches on whether you're ready or not :).



Img03
Harrison at two years old, August 2002

h bday portrait
Harrison on his eighth birthday, June 4, 2008

13 comments:

Killlashandra said...

He's still a cutie. :) The time certainly does fly by doesn't it. Sometimes it's hard to remember getting film developed for a camera even though I know I did it for years.

Unknown said...

Our posts were very similar this week! I think your photo of him on his birthday is gorgeous! (And the 2-year old one is just plain cute!!)

Your photography has improved for sure - and Happy Birthday to Harrison!

Anonymous said...

Handsome young man!

I love seeing how people's skills have improved over time. I remember turning my film in and you could have double prints or not. Then it was the option of getting a CD back. Man! I thought that was cool! And now looks at us... we do our own post-processing! My how time has changed in photography, huh?

Stacy said...

Awww, what a handsome young man. Happy birthday to him!

Love the improvement in your photography, too. I didn't have any photos saved on the floppy disks, but I do have some on CD's. I wish I could reshoot those baby pictures, too. *sigh* Oh, to do it all over again! :)

Joanna said...

He IS a handsome little man! I love the second picture of him on his birthday.
(here from Theme Thursday)

Andi said...

Just wanted to say how great the difference is between the two...when you have a subject that handsome, well...it does not seem to matter though! He is adorable. I loved your words here- it is amazing to me to think how far we've come with technology in general. How funny...wonder what changes the future will hold for us...

Anonymous said...

That is so funny that your photos are on floppies! Oops! That is a really big difference - I love his eyes in the second photo!

Maggie said...

Happy Birthday Harrison!

He is so cute -- then AND now!

Stacy said...

Wow 8 years old! And I thought 5 was old.

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday, Harrison! :)

I know how you feel, though. I didn't even *have* a camera for the first few years of our family. My son Seamus' first birthday pictures were taken with a webcam! (At least we were able to borrow a camera for his birth.) I didn't get a NICE camera until last year -- as a result my photo album is full of grainy, blurry, BAD photos that I love very much!

Rose said...

Dang Megan! He is one gorgeous Harrison!!

Sean said...

What's with the big words like serendipitous? Less talking more pictures.

Anna Sawin said...

What a gorgeous eight-year-old portrait! Does this mean there is hope that my boys might actually look at me someday? :)