In Memorium of Photo-Journalist, Julie

It all started when I went on the junior year abroad in France. I bought a Pentax ME Super and loaded up 64 Kodachrome slide film for the experience. The first two weeks were spent in Paris and traveling through the Loire Valley visiting chateaux I would likely never visit again (and haven't). I took an entire roll of film, 36 pictures! 37, 38, 39, wait just how big is this roll anyway? I asked myself as we pulled into Grenoble.

Turned out it was a roll of 24 and it had never "caught" on the other side so my pictures didn't exist. Not a one.

I cried.

And never made that particular mistake again.

Since then, I've managed to make others.

We packed our wedding album in a trunk for storage in Morocco. The maid sloshed so much water near the base of the trunk that the back page of our album molded as did our wedding vows.

Two years later, I took several rolls of film in Morocco when Johannah was a wee thing of 12-20 months old and Noah was three... These were inadvertently packed in the hanging bag which was stolen at a Paris train station on the way back to the states. (This same bag happened to have my wedding dress in it too... I cried.)

When Jacob was born, I literally threw away all of his birth day (the official birth day, as in home birth) pictures into the trash. I did manage to dig them out of the dumpster before they were incinerated... but they were a bit worse for the wear.

That same year, we made a conscious effort to videotape our family life including the celebration that was Jacob's birth and discovered a year later that the audio was broken. All the family and friends who came to see us, mute as those old 1960s films. The trick or treat outing where Johannah charmed the neighborhood is silent. Johannah's chirpy two year old voice, lost to us.

I haven't had the heart to videotape ever since.

There are more stories of lost photos and memories... (I won't even wonder aloud here where all the family movies of my childhood went after the divorce...)

But today was the last straw.

I went to Costco to pick up my first four rolls of film from Italy only to discover that the film I had purchased at Costco (Kodak 800) must have been old and damaged. The photos are so grainy that they hardly resemble the experience at all. After a quick Google search, I discovered to my horror that Kodak 800 film is considered horse manure!

Why didn't I know that? Why didn't I think to look into it?

I feel sick.

I even had to pay for the crappy film and processing.

I won't even develop the other rolls because seeing the photos ruins my memories. Over 300 photos... totally worthless.

DON'T BUY KODAK 800! In fact, don't buy Kodak film at all, apparently. Everyone raves about Fuji (which is what I almost always use). I thought I was "upgrading" to Kodak. Throwing good money after bad.

Henceforth shall all photo duties belong to the digitales (Spanglish for my adorable "Hey, it's my turn with the digital camera" family members).

Goodbye Creative Memories. Hello Apple i-Photo books.