I’ve completed the migration of images to Zooomr.  As I said many times before, I migrated the vast majority of images—but not all of them.  There are some I want to maintain tighter control of, like my tattoo photos, so they remain hosted on my server.  Barely a handful of pictures fall in that category, so this should not be a major bandwidth strain.  Similarly, I did not migrate anything that I don’t have rights to control.  That includes public domain images like those cute little tidbits that often get forwarded to me via e-mail.

I successfully migrated 1,016 images and left some other number on my server.  Going through all those pictures brought back many memories.  It also brought to light some regrets.

For example, I wish I had known better how to use my camera back three or so years ago when I first began tinkering with it.  So many photographs from my preliminary dabbling in the digital medium truly did come out looking rather infantile at best.  Although I’m still no expert and still am learning the ins and outs of taking decent photos, let alone the various settings of my little ol’ camera, I think I’ve gotten much better at capturing images.  Don’t get me wrong; I’m still not a professional at it, and I never will be.  Nevertheless, like any good wine, I’ve improved with the march of time.  There are moments I see depicted in those old snapshots that I wish I could revisit for no other reason than to attempt a do over, one hopefully that would improve tremendously upon the original.

Something else I noticed during this little jaunt down photography’s Memory Lane has to do with redundancy.  That is, I was quite surprised to find some pictures that, while not exactly the same, were at least so similar to other images I’d posted as to be near copies.  I can’t say there are a vast number of these.  In fact, given the number of photos I’ve posted to date, I’d say they represent a tiny fraction of what’s online.  And still I can’t help but feel a little daft for thinking myself creative 100% of the time when in fact I was simply regurgitating something very much like something else I’d already shared.  Then again, with 15.2 GB of images and videos across 8,425 separate files—and that only covers the multimedia content I’ve taken with this one digital camera—I suppose it’s not entirely shocking to know I might not always remember a specific scene when perusing the archives looking for something to present.

The final regret has nothing whatsoever to do with the images.  It’s about the memories.

Remembrances both good and bad fell upon me like wolves feasting in an unguarded flock of sheep.  Each step back in time carried me further into the recesses of my own mind and heart.  I encountered opportunities lost, times forgotten, experiences relegated to the confines of dark forgetfulness, and an ocean of life whereupon the waves of the past washed over me time and again, sometimes threatening to drown me in the depths.  Whether it be by lamentations or joys, losses or gains, or simply the realization of some minute aspect of life now forever gone, the journey felt like a thousand lifetimes wrapped up in a few weeks.

To read what is in my journals is one thing, for they date back more than 30 years, but to visually experience worlds long forgotten is something else entirely.  Cliché though it might be, a picture can be worth a thousand words.