“It’s better if you take the photograph rather than ruminating in your head about if you should or you shouldn’t. If I don’t take the picture, nobody else will.” — Lele Bonizzi

Bonizzi, originally from Italy, just graduated from Utah State University. Lele was awarded the honor of College Photographer of the Year Award of Excellence in the International Picture Story category for 2024.

Having attended USU for an academic year, I’m considered an alum of sorts. I saw the article about Lele in the Winter edition of the Utah State Magazine.

I believe that Lele gives good advice. Most of us these days have a camera with us all the time. It’s called a cell phone. If we are in a “photo worthy situation” and the thought comes to mind, “I should take a picture,” – I believe we should take the dang picture.

It might be a sunset. It might be a sunrise (for you, not so much for me – unless I’m awake because of heartburn or something). It might be your kids or grandkids eating ice cream. It might be a deer eating your newly planted peach tree. It might be a fishing or hunting outing. It could be anything.

Remember years ago, when film cameras were what we were using? Many of us carefully considered every picture that we took. We knew we only had so much film. It was expensive to buy film and expensive to have it processed.

I went on a church mission to Norway in 1971. I took money with me to buy a new business suit and some clothing upon arrival. My parents thought that was a good idea – to get “local clothing.”

When I got “in country,” I was soon informed, by my fellow “wise and experienced” (mostly 19 – 21-year-old young men) that a good share of that clothing money would best be spent on a mail order, 35mm, single lens reflex, Nikkormat camera.

I felt a little like Jack from the story “Jack and Bean Stalk.” I wasn’t sure that I should “sell the cow for magic beans,” but I did. I ordered the camera from the Yokohama Camera Company in Japan.

About a month later, the camera arrived. I took quite a few pictures in the beautiful country of Norway. I wish I had taken more. I never regretted the camera purchase.

And my wardrobe didn’t suffer. I found a nice suit and other clothing that were less expensive than what I originally had planned on spending.

When I was in college, I took a class called “Physics of Photography.” It was a great class for me because it fulfilled a science credit and didn’t really have too much difficult science involved.

The class did teach me some important principles. And it did get me into a dark room multiple times for developing pictures. Unfortunately for me, nothing really “developed” on the dating scene as a result of that class – though the professor had suggested that students should work together in the dark room.

Nowadays, many of you may be in the same boat as me as far as picture taking goes. As I write this piece right now, I’m pausing to look at my phone.

Oh, it’s worse than I thought. I have 3,118 photos on my phone at the moment.

Those pictures have accumulated since November of 2023. That’s when I cleared off my photos prior to going on a trip to Switzerland and Germany for Thanksgiving.

My philosophy is that I want to take a lot of pictures. The second part of the philosophy is that I want to regularly go back through and review the pictures and delete the bad ones. I’m really not very good at that step two part. (I’m taking care of my procrastination issues; just you wait and see)

It is so easy to take pictures these days. We take pictures of everything. One of the weirdest things we do, and I do it, is to take pictures of our food in restaurants.

We then text or email the pictures to friends and family. “Look at me! I’m having waffles with strawberries and whipped cream at IHop!”

Remember when we took pictures of us and our food and then had to take the film to the drugstore to have it developed? Then we had to go back in a week or so and pick up the pictures.

Then we would go around the neighborhood and show the pictures of our sirloin steak and baked potato to friends and then mail copies to our relatives. No, of course you don’t remember that! Because we didn’t do it.

So, I guess there’s a couple of competing issues at work on the picture taking subject.

1. Take plenty of pictures. You’ll be glad you did as time passes. And make sure you include people in most of your pictures. A zillion landscapes without people becomes boring over time.

2. Don’t keep tooooo many pictures. You’ll have to be the judge of how many is too many.

Consider this. It is estimated that every 15 minutes today, people take as many photos as were taken in the entire 19th century. Photos in the 1800s cost $6 – $60 each in today’s dollars.

Those pictures which survive of our ancestors are valuable to us today. I think the pictures we take of our families and friends will become more and more valuable to us as time goes on.

My wife has been going through piles of old family photographs and digitizing them. What a job! Her parents have been gone for quite a while now.

I love it when she finds a photo which has her mother’s handwriting on the back which reads: “Jim – Last Month.” We chuckle. An actual date would have been nice.

Take more pictures Sanpete! We live in a “photogenic place.” And when you put your photogenic friends and family in our Sanpete places, you’ve got a really good photo as a memory.

A couple of smiles: “I had to give up my career as a photographer. I kept losing focus.” “Why was Cinderella so hopeful about her photos? She knew her prints would come one day.” — Merrill