As I reflect on my recent trip to Cuba, I think about how fortunate I am that my grandmother, great-aunts and other relatives had the foresight to take dozens of pictures with them when they went into exile.
Without their vision, I wouldn’t know what my great-grandparents looked like, what my paternal grandmother and grandfather looked like as children and young adults, what my father looked like as a child. A picture of my paternal grandparents’ wedding day sits on a bookshelf in my home.
The black and white photograph below was taken on the portico of my father’s family home in Cienfuegos, Cuba. He and my grandmother are pictured on the far left.
Nearly seventy years later, my husband took a photograph of me by that very lion statue.
That is all to say, to encourage you, that as you gather with your friends and family this weekend, take photographs with an old-school camera. There’ll be more than one that you’ll want to print and frame or print and mail (yes, mail) to loved ones.
Taking photos with our devices is well and good and fun, but not as well and good and fun as holding a printed photograph in your hand.
margaritabirnbaum 