Photos

Digital photography... a great invention!!! I think... It used to be this way. I would buy some film, take some photos, being careful to just take good ones... get the photos developed and printed... label them and then put them in a photo album, which would then sit on a shelf. I might take it off the shelf every once in a while to look at it or show to other people... Now, I know that some people just get the photos developed and put them in a shoebox... but the idea is similar...

Today though... we have a one-time cost of a memory stick... and then we take photos galore... because we can always delete the bad ones... download them to our computer... organize them and tag them (some people don't do this step)... and then they sit there... Maybe we make a photo book or a slide-show cd... or send a few to relatives... But for the most part... the photos sit in our computer... never being looked at again.

So, say, in the olden days... I went on a trip to San Francisco and burned up 5 rolls of film. I come home and get them developed and can then put them in a photo album... Think of the costs involved:
Film - $10/roll = $50
Developing - $15/roll = $75
Photo album - $20/album - $20
Total cost - give or take - $150 (or so)

Today... with digital...
Memory Stick - $20 (maybe... and it's reusable over and over gain... so really only $1 for this trip)
Photo Book - $50 (and that is generous!)
Total Cost - $51

Taking photos and displaying them today is way... WAY... cheaper than before... so why don't we do it anymore??? Too many photos to sift through??? I'm not sure... but if anybody has a different cost analysis... let me know! Because it seems like we should have photo books from Shutterfly or Kodak or Snapfish all over the place... And yet we don't... or at least... I don't!