Photo-Mat Musings

We don’t mean to complain, and it’s really not that big of a deal…and we’re sure the pressure we feel is self-inflicted, but who would have thought that along with the other responsibilities a new parent faces — feeding, clothing, raising the child — photographing and more importantly, distributing photographs is at the top of the list.

When asked how their children are faring, our friends generally offer not an overview of the child’s progress, but a response more like, “Oh, I’m so sorry I haven’t gotten any photos to you lately.” Or, “I’m sorry I haven’t sent any photos. My digital camera is acting up, again.”

We’re all interested in seeing updated shots of our friends and families’ offspring, but has the convenience of the digital age once again applied undue pressure on an already weary parent? Gone are the days when an annual holiday card photo sufficed.

And we know you’re thinking, “C’mon. How hard is it to attach a photo to an e-mail and send it around?” Aha...Not so fast! Digital photography has also made it that much easier to take hundreds of photos of the child. The new parent is now faced with downloading, sorting and deleting photos; backing-up the catalogue on cds or an external hard drive; and when you’re finally ready to e-mail a few shots, resizing the images so as not to exceed e-mail storage limits. And while most family members are digitally accessible, the eldest generation, who are probably most deserving of a photo of his/her great-grandchild, probably don’t have a yahoo or snapfish account.

So the new parent has to fork it out for a good quality color photo printer, or, as is our case, make a gallant return to the photo-mat, in all it's post-analog, touch screen, digital glory. (Or... you could start a blog about some nonsense as a not-so-subtle way to disseminate the week's cutest shots).