Commentary: An embarrassment of photographic riches

I recently got the last of the British Isles prints from Snapfish. My camera had given out on day three of our recent trip, so I had to rely on my son Mark’s electronic devices.

Wow, have things changed since Lee and I used to travel. Bless his heart, he would carry a ton of equipment for me — my single-lens reflex with the normal lens, plus the wide-angle lens and the foot-long lens that weighed a lot but took stunning close-ups of distant things. I had to select my own F-stops (a lens speed measurement) back then.

And film? Oh, my gosh! When I was packing for a trip, I would take the film out of the bright yellow boxes and number a sticker on each canister, which Lee toted around the world for me in that same hefty camera case. As I exposed each roll, I wrote what was on it beneath the number, then loaded the next numbered roll.

Developing was costly. A traveler tended to be specific in her choice of shots.

I have bought successively smaller, simpler cameras over the years.

For one of our last cruises, I bought a shiny, red slim-line camera, but Lee and I went to Hawaii after that, and you need only so many pics of palm trees and gorgeous beaches.

To document our trips, we relied on the ship’s photographers’ pictures of our disembarking in the different ports, plus the formal photos. We bought the ones I thought turned out well. I am the least-photogenic person I know. In the port pics, I am usually wearing sunglasses, which helps.

The shiny, red camera had a design defect, in my humble opinion. It turned on when the cover was slid open, and this seemed to occur randomly in my purse. As a result, the battery was frequently drained when I needed it.

I made a point of not letting that happen on this trip. I dutifully charged the battery each night, but the camera apparently resented having its freedom curtailed, and its battery simply quit holding a charge. The photography studio on the ship didn’t sell batteries. By day three of the cruise, the only cameras left for sale were over $400.

So Mark took the pictures. His electronics consisted of a nice little camera with an on/off switch and a zoom lens — very serviceable. He also took photos on his iPad. And on his phone. I rather enjoyed not taking the pictures. I didn’t have to see everything through the eye of the camera for a change.

The first batch of pictures he transferred to my home computer over a month ago were from his camera. I had already loaded the 100 or so I had taken, compared similar shots and deleted the not-as-good ones. As I recall, the total number of pictures I loaded onto Snapfish, just from our cameras, was in excess of 750.

I winnowed that number down to about 600, editing as I went through them, and ordered two of each. I bet you have no idea how much 1,200 photos weigh. I had to get the dolly from the garage to bring them in off the porch.

When the crate was opened, I couldn’t begin to guess the order of the 20 or so fat packets.

I don’t wish to sound jaded, but the insides of one castle or cathedral can look much like the insides of another, once things get out of order. As for scenery, in the British Isles, it is green everywhere, and whether the animals are cows or sheep doesn’t help identify where the tour bus was headed. The beautiful buildings looked similar in all the ports too.

Mark and I spent a Sunday putting the pics in the same order as on his laptop. What a relief. I wrote where and when on all the envelopes, times two.

Then he put the iPad pictures on my computer. We agreed to not load the phone pictures. There weren’t many of those anyway.

After I uploaded the iPad pictures to Snapfish, it took me days to go through them — and not consecutive days — selecting the better of similar shots. When my eyes began spinning in my head, I gave up and ordered all of the rest of them. Two each. They’re here.

I am waiting for a Sunday visit from my traveling companion, when all we have to do is sort through pictures and insert them among the earlier shots.

Then to get all the photos culled and put into albums!

Meanwhile, I bought a new camera with an extra battery. I’m sure I’ll go somewhere within the year. All our kids want to help me complete my bucket list of world sights. And no more dolly loads of deliveries from now on. I’ll stick to taking pictures with my family in them. The sights will be recorded for all time, but in the background.

LIZ SWIERTZ NEWMAN lives in Corona del Mar.