Once upon a time, the world used film cameras to capture “Kodak Moments”. We chose our images carefully, and composed within the viewfinder. The idea was to reduce screw ups. Film cost money, and processing was pricey.

And yet, we snapped away,graduating from Brownie box cameras, to Instamatics, to Polaroid Land cameras, to 35mm SLRs. We filled shoe boxes with prints, negs, contact sheets, and slides. Envelopes and boxes bear the date and place of the images within. Loch Sheldrake ’71. Nantucket ’77. Paros ’84. Woodstock ’91. Then, we went digital, and our hard drive folders hold: Paris/Amsterdam ’15. Montauk ’19. Taormina ’23. Budapest ’24. And, now, Bordeaux ’25.

These days, our cameras are out throughout the day. Free photography! Yaay! Ready, shoot, aim!!! Right? Cause for joy?

Well, yes and no.

Apps such as Snapseed and Camera + transform our phones into powerful image capturing machines. Why carry a nifty compact digital camera for grab shots, vacation photos, family pix, when all you need is your handy-dandy smartphone? These digital vacuum cleaners Hoover up memories as they eliminate processing wait-times, mid-activity film reloading, image sharing — and, most of all — artistic restraint. Just keep shooting away, and sort a cloud’s worth of shoeboxes at some later date.

Where is the lie?

Whelp, I just came back from vacation. And I’m here to report that my fellow travelers had their phones permanently implanted in their faces for the entire trip. Cathedral – got it! Pastry shop window — got it! Cool harbor sunset – got it!

Yeah, we get it; you GOT it. But did you EXPERIENCE the moment? Is the compulsive documentation of each waking hour healthy? Wise? Necessary?

Several times on this trip, I detached from the group and wandered off. I got a haircut on a Barcelona side street during a windstorm that tore off a tree branch and slammed it into the barber’s scooter, which was parked outside. A master-class of cursing (by the barber) ensued. I sat in the chair as the barber calmed down. I explained in my sad Spanglish how I wanted my hair cut. It went well, as did his proud tale of the history of his shop, opened by his grandfather 85 years ago. All the fixtures were original, even the razor strop of heavy, burnished, horsehide.

I took the Metro, and fumbled mightily with unfamiliar prompts of the ticket machine. A local resident provided help, and I got on the correct train, got off at the correct stop, and — once above ground — got directions to my final destination from a young couple walking their doggies.

I sat at an outdoor cafe, ordered lunch, and watched the passing parade. Nothing special, just city people going about their business. I wandered down alleys, bought shoes, tasted new wines.

And rarely did I reach for my phone. My camera. My phone AND my camera (Faye Dunaway/Chinatown voice needed here).

Because it’s important to preserve memories. As Paul Simon wrote in his song “Old Friends” — “preserve your memories, they’re all that’s left you…”

But maybe it’s better to preserve a few of them in the “cloud” that can only exist in your brain, rather than on your phone. Bad Bunny/Benito Ocasio now sings “Debi’ Tirar Mas Fotos” (“I Should Have Taken More Photos”). He longs to preserve, in a fast-changing world, the magic and emotion of beloved people and places forever lost in time. Me too. His videos are very powerful, especially this short film of a guy in Puerto Rico who faces cruel headwinds of change in his sanitized, gentrified island town. Check this out:

I’m just saying that it’s also important to put that smartphone back in your pocket once in awhile. Maybe sometimes the photos you DON’T TAKE pack more emotion and staying-power than the dawn-to-dusk photography too often practiced today.