What's On Your Camera Roll?

Mara here. There are probably people who don't know what I mean by the question, "What's on your camera roll?" To understand this and have it be applicable to you, you have to be very attached to your cell phone.

I am one of those people.

For those of you who might not have a phone in your hand all the time, people's camera rolls refers to what they take pictures and screen shots of. For people like me, who scroll their way through news stories, social media, emails, texts, online calendars, online books—online everything—it's common to take pictures and screen shots (like a screen print for computers) of things that you want to remember.

So, sometimes people joke that you can know a lot about a person by scrolling through their camera roll. What does that person take pictures of? Are there a lot of selfies? Are there a lot of memes?

If I got hit by a car today, what would people learn about me from what I had chosen to take pictures of?

Here are the top three things I screen shot or take pictures of:

1) Pictures of my pets. Once upon a time it might have been my daughter but she rarely lets me take pictures of her now. So I take lots of pictures of my cats and dog because, in my humble opinion, they're really adorable.

2) Screenshots of snarky memes. I love memes. If you aren't familiar with memes they're pictures with a saying on them. Sometimes they're serious, but usually it's a joke of some kind. Sometimes it's a quote or poem, but often it's random things. They make me laugh. Sometimes they make me think or allow me to share with others a thought I've had. But mostly I screenshot things that are sarcastic that I find funny.

3) Screenshots of recipes. I honestly don't know why I do this. I barely cook. And when I do cook it's pretty much the same dozen things I've cooked for years. But I have this crazy obsession with taking screenshots of recipes that look yummy. I've taken screenshots of hundreds of recipes. The biggest problem with doing this is there's really no easy way for me to go back through and find these recipes. (I have nearly 15,000 photos on my phone right now.) But I still do it. I can't stop.

Those are the top three...but I have pictures of a lot of other things too. I guess you could get a fairly decent idea of what is important to me by going through my pictures. I love my pets. I like flowers. I like jokes (memes) and I don't take myself too seriously. It would not be a stretch to assume I have a bad memory because I take lots of photos of phone numbers and addresses—or things in general that I need to remember. I take photos of identifying marks in parking garages because I can't ever remember where I've parked. I take photos of valet tickets in case I lose the actual ticket. If you give me a business card, I take a photo of it. In fact, anything that I might lose (or forget), I try to take a photo of it.

From my photos, you would definitely get the wrong idea that I was some kind of dinner cooking machine, but that's not the worst thing to have people mistakenly think about me, so it's ok.

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Toni here. I guess I'd have to say that this blog post belongs to Mara because I rarely take pictures with my cell phone. Once in a while, if I make something I'm going to give away (such as a crocheted scarf), I'll take a picture of it first, but that's about it.

This is odd, because I used to own a SLR camera before cameras went digital and, for many years, considered myself an amateur photographer. But that was years ago, before I became mostly housebound by illness. And I suppose that's why I don't have a "camera roll" as Mara calls it. I think of my cell phone as an emergency device. It sits in my purse if I go out, in case I need to make a call. 

I also don't clip things, like recipes, out of newspapers, although my husband does. He loves the New York Times cooking section. I do bookmark a lot of things on my computer though! They're mostly about whatever creative endeavor I'm currently pursuing. So, when I was trying freeform crochet, I bookmarked dozens of sites, some with instructions and others with photos I loved of people's work. And I bookmark things that I buy regularly so I don't have to look them up each time, such as the kind of dog food I buy for Scout or supplements I take.

Pretty boring, I know. At least Mara has an interesting camera roll!

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So what about you? What's on your camera roll? If you don't take a lot of pictures with a cell phone, what do you clip out of newspapers? What kinds of things do you bookmark on your computer?

One of Mara's favorite memes.