How often do you take photos with your phone, with the intention of capturing a moment or a scene, and then months or years later, realize you’ve never looked at them?

At the time this post comes out, my husband and I (and our dog) are attempting camping for a fall weekend. I say attempting because I am more of a glamping person – I like modern amenities. But I wanted to try and take our dog with us on an adventure where we don’t really have any plans, other than enjoy each other’s company and the nature God created.

That’s why I felt this post topic would be good to post this weekend: take your time and enjoy the things around you.

This summer, Matt and I road tripped across the southwest. My series on that will start next week. I took thousands of photos with my actual camera. And then I got home, found a nice leather photo album, went through all of the pictures, and selected a couple hundred to print out. I organized them in chronological order, wrote a couple of notes, and added them to the photo album. And I have to say, I enjoyed that process a whole lot more than taking photos with my phone and never looking at them again.

If I didn’t like my digital camera so much, I could see a film camera being fun – hoping you actually took a good picture, but having to wait for it to develop. But one thing I am going to continue, every big trip that I go on, if I can bring my camera, I’ll go through a couple weeks later, edit the photos if needed, and decide which ones I like best enough to go into my photo album. Then I’ll add a note about the food we ate along the way, or the people we met, or any funny stories – sort of like a journal. Taking the time to reflect on the trip is a lot of fun, especially when you can piece it together by hand. I remember when I was making the album for our southwest trip, I had piles of photos surrounding me as I worked really hard to remember the chronological order – and the dog certainly was trying to help!

I’m also trying to take more photos with my camera versus my phone this year. It’s a lot of fun to use my digital camera, and I need to get better at my photo-taking skills, figuring out all of the settings to change and when. Sometimes it doesn’t work, and that’s okay! Other times, I’m able to focus on something in a side mirror and blur out the background so that I can get two images in one.

Another thing I tried to do during our trip was draw instead of taking a picture at all. This aspect is not nearly as good as I imagined, but it is so much fun to try and draw what I am seeing. I’m not very good at it at all, but being able to try and put what I see on paper makes me analyze the colors more, the shadows, the size and lines that I see. I feel that I am able to take my time and really appreciate the scenery before me as I try to get it on paper. I’m not very successful, and a photo would better capture the image – but there’s just something about trying to see all of the details that immerses me in the image more than just taking a quick picture.

I guess I’m trying to lessen the instant gratification. Learning to take my time and appreciate the world around me.

This weekend, I’ll be camping in a primitive cabin, and we’ll see how it goes. I would prefer to have running water, a restroom, and a kitchen, but luckily, it’s only for a weekend, and even without that, I think it will be fun to just spend time together. I’m bringing my camera, and if I don’t forget it, I might bring some watercolor paint to try and capture the fall colors.

Life is short. I was reminded of that again this week, with the loss of someone I called an adopted grandmother. You never know when the last time you’ll see someone or talk to someone will be. Take time to appreciate the people and things that you love – one day they’ll be gone, and you don’t want to have any regrets. Slow down and appreciate the people and places that God has put in your life – you never know when it will end.

If you are not 100% sure that you’ll go to Heaven when you die, now is the time to repent and put your trust in Jesus Christ. If you have any questions or doubts about your salvation, click here to learn how you can be saved!

Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions below or you can contact me here! I love hearing from you!