Friday 24 October 2008

How do you create a Legacy? Part 1


1. Take photographs!
Here is a piccie of my darling hubbie! Hoping I can sneak this in without him noticing as he's very shy...

A legacy is defined as something handed down to a successor, ie:- your children or loved ones. Often one's will contains a list of possessions and how you would like these distributed. There is more to life than that. How can you pass down memories and ensure that family traditions live on? Taking photos is one way but pretty pointless if you don't print them. Storing your photos on your PC is a great idea as a back up but don't fall into the trap of not printing them. It's expensive enough here in Africa, so try to keep it up pretty regularly so you can budget for it. Once you have your photos you have them forever. It is so worth it. Photos can become useless if they are not captioned, especially if the photographer has died and you cannot ask them for the story behind the shot.

Scrap your photos regularly or at least display them in a photograph album with a journalling space alongside each of them, where you can record names, places, dates, emotions etc. Start by recording important moments in life (most of us do that anyway), ie:-Birthdays, Christmas, graduations and other meaningful events. Start thinking deeper and getting visual records of everything you want to remember, ie:-your pets, your kids toys, your house, favourite parts of your garden, even your local shopping mall. You may move towns and be grateful for the reminder.

Hand over the camera occasionally and get someone else to take some snaps of you with your loved ones or in your favourite places, otherwise you will be missing from your own albums! Try capturing impromptu moments when your family are unawares, such as when dad is reading kids a bedtime story. I find these the most touching records of all as this is real life. Ali Edwards suggests taking at least one photo a day. This sounds a lot easier than it actually is and is not always practical. What I do do now is caryy around a good quality, small digital camera (Panasonic Lumix) in my handbag, along with a spare battery as it's amazing how quickly the battery runs down. This way I have no excuse to miss a moment and I always have my camera with me!

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