Mixtapes and Photo Albums
FM (Friday Morning) Reflection #5
This week, I find myself reflecting on mixtapes and photo albums — seemingly simple things that once played a crucial role in how we captured, shared, and understood the narrative of our lives.
Take the humble family photo album – yes, those old school and often ugly-on-the-outside binders filled with snapshots – each print clinging to sticky glue-striped paper and covered with crinkly sheets of cellophane.
We had a cabinet or chest filled with these treasures when I was growing up. Once a photo was placed in an album, it was there to stay, lest you risk destroying it by attempting to peel it from an album page. Except for the one or two albums where the glue had degraded and all the photos were ready to cascade out as soon as I opened the cover!
There weren't many pictures in those albums by today's standards – maybe a few hundred in total to document decades of life. Yet, I still recall many of them vividly.
I can still feel the weight of each album on my lap as I sat with my mom or dad, and they told me stories about the people in those images and the places they were. Their voices wove a narrative tapestry of my family's history, helping me understand where I came from, and at a point in time, those photos started to include me too.
Through those conversations and moments, our family photo albums were brought to life with a companion oral history, with the photos serving as waypoints in the journey of our lives.
Fast forward to the early days of my marriage, when my life partner and I took our cameras on all of our excursions and trips, and created slideshows that we would shuffle through as we reminisced in the months following.
We shot Polaroids at home and splurged for a Sony Digital Handycam 8mm camcorder when we were expecting our daughter. I meticulously documented her first moments and years with us and spent hours creating DVDs on our tangerine iMac to watch on our TV and send to family members. We were creating our own story, laying down our own markers, and weaving our own tapestry.
Then came the smartphone era. Suddenly, we all had cameras in our pockets, capturing thousands of moments. As of this morning, my phone holds more than 45,000 photos and nearly 700 videos – an overwhelming catalog of daily life, each just a swipe away.
But there’s a difference between sheer volume and a curated collection that tells a cohesive story. The photo albums I recall from my childhood, though limited in number, were rich in meaning. They were carefully assembled narratives that still resonate with me, even decades later.
Mixtapes are another form of narrative storytelling and represent a unique form of personal expression. Creating a mixtape isn’t about compiling a list of songs – it’s about creating a sonic journey.
I remember spending hours selecting tracks, carefully considering which songs to include and arranging them in order. Each tape – and I mean cassettes! – was a narrative unto itself.
Mixtapes were never just about the music; they were about the message, the effort, the thought that went into selecting each track. Sometimes, they were a way to capture a mood or a period in my life. Other times, they were a form of communication, especially when I made one for someone else. It was a way of saying, "This is how I'm feeling" or "These songs make me think of you" with the hope that the recipient would decode the hidden messages buried within the track list.
The physical nature of cassettes added another dimension of meaning. Unlike a digital playlist sent with a text, a mixtape was a tangible gift. I could say, "I made this for you," and hand over something real, something that took time and thought to create. The act of exchanging tapes was a type of ritual.
The shift from physical to digital has made it easier than ever to capture moments, but the convenience of snapping a quick photo or sending a link to a song can’t replace something created with intentionality and especially something tangible.
In our pursuit of frictionless experiences and hyper-personalization, we can lose touch with the essential act of memory-making. It's not just about capturing moments, but about treasuring them, editing them, and interpreting them to reveal the narrative of our lives.
Perhaps that’s why I take my restored Polaroid SX-70 camera with me on walks around the city or on travels. There's something deeply satisfying about capturing a moment in a physical form, something I can hold and share in a tangible way, and I recently purchased new albums to catalog and chronicle my adventures. I haven’t gotten back to mixtapes yet, but perhaps that’s next on the list.
As I reflect this morning, I'm not suggesting we abandon digital progress. Rather, I'm wondering how we can use new technologies like AI to enhance our connection to memories and to each other.
How can we curate our abundance of digitally captured moments into meaningful narratives?
How do we create new forms of sharing and connection that captures the intentionality of a mixtape or a carefully assembled photo album?
I don’t want AI to do it for me – I want it to help along the way.
I have no easy answers or life hacks to offer here. But I do know that as I personally navigate this rapidly evolving digital landscape, I’m being intentional about finding a balance, and cherishing the moments when I can create something physical and unique – be it a Polaroid snapshot or a carefully curated collection of memories and shared stories.
These are ways to make sense of our experiences, to connect with others, and to leave behind a trace of ourselves that says, "This is who I was, and who we were. This is what mattered to me and to us.”
And let’s ensure that whatever stories we tell – whether they be analog or digital – reflect our true selves.
Wishing you a thoughtful and intentional weekend.
Bonus Content
A dragon featured at the Philadelphia Chinese Lantern Festival, which I had the pleasure to experience earlier this week, captured with my Polaroid SX70 on Yellow 600 Film. The festival is open through August 31st, 2024.