Speech as a Second Language

At a family party this summer, I took a lot of pictures. I really enjoy taking pictures because I like to remember what were doing, what was happening, and who was there. I also really enjoy taking pictures because I like looking at them with other people. There have been times when I’ve pulled my camera out and people say, incredulously, “What do you do with all of those pictures?” Granted, I may be winding up for my 150th shot that hour, but my answer is always “I look at them alone, all by myself, at night.”

I’m kidding, of course. All I want to do after I’ve taken photos is to share them. I want to put together and album and inspire a wave of comments and get everyone excited about the next time we get together.

But at this family party this summer, during breakfast after a great evening of partying and dancing and eating and drinking, there was concern. Would all of the photos that I took of everyone partying and dancing and eating and drinking be posted to Facebook? Would they plastered all across my blog on the internet? Was there any time left before I had irresponsibly violated everyone’s privacy?

The concerns were justifiable and understandable. I have lots of younger cousins who are applying to schools in the next few years, and any evidence of debauchery — no matter how fallacious — might jeopardize their admission.

But the uproar left me frustrated. I had lots of great shots, many of which I knew everyone would like to see. Photos of my dad and his siblings, of couples dancing, of cousins laughing, and of uncles BBQ’ing. But they might have been mixed in with shots of a youths sitting tables with beer bottles, or, even worse, red Solo cups.

When I was back home, I imported the photos, tagged them, made an album, and then pondered my next move. There were at least 4 different layers of sharing I would need in order to ensure that only the certain people that were “allowed” to see certain shots. Deciding that everyone had seemed more concerned with not seeing the photos, I didn’t bother creating 4+ different albums of the same event for 30 different people. But I still wanted to share the memories, and just hated the idea that I had to do so much work to appease all of the parties involved.

And so a problem had presented itself.