We have had a number of out-of-town visitors so my posts this week have been somewhat abbreviated. Yesterday, however, I created an entry called “Why Photographers Do What They Do”, which links to a video about possible motivating and inspiring forces behind photography.

As citizens of a highly visual world, we might often overlook the importance of photographs in our lives and why many of us have shoe boxes, or the equivalent, of old photographs stored on a shelf somewhere in our home. I know that I have pictures of people that I must acknowledge remain strangers to me. They might have been important to my parents or grandparents, but are foreigners in my household and yet lie in repose firmly stacked among my closest of relatives.

Some of these pictures are only reviewed every few years or once a decade. The point is that they are looked at. Maybe a death in the family prompts the cobwebs to be wiped away. Why do we keep these photographs? Why are there dozens or hundreds of pictures that are only looked at periodically?

Missy Mwac might have the answer to the questions above in her revealing and poignant piece, “If You Don’t Think Photos Are Important, Wait Until They Are All You Have Left.” I encourage you to read her essay to find out why, we as consumers of visual media, do what we do.

What do you think about Missy’s essay and the thoughts above?