Today I’ve spent hours going through old photos and scanning some and just staring misty-eyed at others. It’s a good way to spend an afternoon, if a bit melancholy at times.

I have boxes of packages of developed pictures. Remember we used to have to send them off to Kodak in Atlanta and wait forever? Then when one-hour developing became the incredible, magic, instant kind of picture? (Okay, Polaroid, you tried with the instant picture thing, but you never quite made it easy or inexpensive.)

And now, you see the very picture you’re taking on a tiny screen. As you take it. Not the picture you thinking you’re taking when you look through a viewfinder. And the camera just finds faces for you and focuses? No chopped off heads? No pictures shifted slightly to right, where the lens actually was as opposed to the eye? And you carry this little miracle camera around in your pocket and send those photos anywhere in the world the minute you take them? Modern photography and sharing of photographs is a wonder.

But. Really. Can any of you really find the photo you’re thinking about any better than you could when they were actual pieces of paper, scattered around in shoe boxes? Files, folders, tags, facial recognition…sigh. Still can’t find anything.

But it’s been a sweet day trying.