A trophy carries dust. Memories last forever.

Mary Lou Retton

I always adored this quote. Mary Lou Retton was an American gymnast so I believe she meant it literally, but I always understood it as in terms of big events like concerts. In my analogy the trophy would be pictures¹, I was never a fan of taking long videos or a lot of pictures when visiting certain places or events.

I realized that when I am focused on taking pictures I don’t fully enjoy the moment and the show, not to mention that those pictures never truly represent how great something was compared to seeing it live.

My best example

I can’t think of a better example for this than the airshows I attended. On those airshows there are hundreds if not thousands of visitors, most of them taking pictures with their phones, their eyes glued to their screens, but there are also these people called Spotters.

Those are the people that have registered in advance for a spotter slot on the airshow and have a special area from which they can record and take photos. Keep in mind that those are skilled photographers with much better gear, so their work is of much higher quality then pictures taken with a phone(no matter if you have latest iPhone, Samsung or whatever, professional camera in front of a skilled photographer will always be better).

Most of their work, if not all, will be publicly available. So you can see later professional photos and videos of something you saw live, if you take your own photos then later from them all you’ll see are mediocre photos of something you didn’t see live(and live show was 10x better) because your eyes were glued to the screen. I apply the same principle to concerts.

Conclusion

I apply this concepts of enjoying in what’s in front of me rather then taking pictures in almost every situation I encountered. I always prioritize making memories in such cases, then if I also have time for a quick photo or video, sure why not. For example when my daughter does something sweet I’ll first keep enjoying it and then only maybe after a few times she does it, when I’ve seen it plenty of times, I’ll grab a phone and snap a quick photo or two.

I’m curious how do you perceive this quote other then literally? What first pops to your mind when reading it, are you like me or do you have your own interpretation of it?

Have a lovely Saturday, my friend is getting married today so I am sure I’ll have fun tonight 🙂

1. When I talk about pictures in this post I mean both pictures and videos ↩︎