Why don’t you take a picture? It will last longer.

SOUVENIR - Etymology: French, literally, act of remembering, from Middle French, from (se) souvenir to remember, from Latin subvenire to come up, come to mind. Meaning: something that serves as a reminder

Pictures are what make me remember. Nothing transports me back to a time or place like seeing it frozen in front of me. To artfully and realistically capture something: a place, a moment, a time in ones life, is a valuable time capsule whose worth is often incomparable.

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines the word souvenir as “something that serves as a reminder”. We see traditional souvenirs in touristy locations, scattered at rest stops, airports and almost anywhere else that draws a crowd: tee shirts, mugs, magnets, shot glasses, etc. all proudly sporting their origin. When the BF and I drove from MA to CA, we picked up a magnet from every state we stopped in. We bought a Route 66 mug and a box of rocks from the Meramec Caverns. We picked up little souvenirs of the trip at just about every stop we made. And do you know where these are today? Neither do I.

But what I do have is a photo album. I have the pictures. These are what we saved, these are what we still look at. These are what make the memories flood back, that make us relive the trip. Not the magnets whose backing fell off within six months, not the mug that most likely broke and was thrown away, not the matches I picked up in the restaurants we ate at.

Photography has the special ability to capture a moment in time. It gives us a sense of place that generic objects can’t begin to come close to. Its a personal recollection and creation. Its the act of creating it that makes it special. Anyone can pick up a mass produced kangaroo pin, but to have taken the picture of the kangaroo is to have lived it.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against souvenirs (we brought back plenty from our Australian trip) but I’m just saying, they quickly lose whatever sentimentality we attributed to them. When I want to remember, when I want to revisit the trip, I don’t go for the boomerang, I go to the images I created. And while the aren’t perfect pieces of art, they are all uniquely mine.