The lectures – I can hear them now. The lectures will start when my nephews hear that I’m going back to printed photos and convincing my sister to do the same. “Noooooooooooooo!” (they’ll say.) But I’ve decided. I’ve made up my mind. I HATE digital photos!

For years, the nephews made fun of me for not jumping on the technology bandwagon: My camera was huge! Get with the century! So, I did. I purchased a tiny, digital camera.

You have to understand, I take thousands of photos. Everyone complains when I stop every 2 feet to snap that fabulous memory, but no one complains weeks later when I’m the one with the great shots. Suddenly, my thousands of photos are in demand.

Digital photos are beautiful, I agree. Thousands of photos fit on a memory card, I agree. It’s  cheaper than printing, I agree. So, why do I hate them?

Two main reasons: No one looks at them (including me) and they disappear.

In the 70s, when I visited a friend or relative, someone handed me an envelope just returned from the local developer. I would sit and flip through the photos and smile, admire, ooooh and ahhhhh and sometimes cry. My best friends always purchased “Picture Picture” (2 prints of each for one low price) and let me select a few memories to keep. I still have them. I still pull out the book or box and flip through the photos that take me to times and places I had forgotten.

Last month, we went to Germany, I met my cousins for the first time (in 60 years). At every home, someone pulled out a photo album (or 2 or 6) and we spent hours looking at pictures of my mother as a girl, aunts and uncles I had never met, my grandparents. Not one relative sat me down at a computer and said “Click here to view the rest.”

I took hundreds of photos of my new-found relatives. I captured as many memories as possible. In the second week of our visit, the unthinkable happened: My computer was full. I couldn’t download one single photo!

OK, now what? Well, I had been well versed about keeping photos in “the cloud”. I spent an entire, precious evening moving everything on my computer to space I purchased on Amazon and Dropbox.

When the moves were complete (yes, they notified me), I deleted the files on my camera and computer and emptied the wastebasket. Voila! Room on the computer again! The trip continued, photos were taken and uploaded to my computer, and a month later, we returned home.

Then I went to Dropbox (and the Cloud and Amazon) to retrieve my photos. There were none! There were folders, but the folders were empty! Over 800 photos lost forever.

Remember I said that I moved everything from my computer? It wasn’t just the Germany photos that disappeared forever. Our trip to Alaska, Savannah, and more. The only photos I had of my grandson growing up.

I’m in the long, tedious process of moving whatever photos there are out there back to my computer. It takes much more time to move them back. So, the decision is made. I’m going back to printed photos.

I’ll keep my digital camera and I’ll join this century by having books made instead of just prints – in 18 months, when I finish downloading them all.