A normal day for me involves, falling into an exhausted slumber at 11:45 ish, waking up to a kicking toddler at 2 a.m. Getting up at 6:30, going to school, coming home, taking a quick nap, cooking something fast and doing whatever odd obligation I have that evening. Tonight's obligation:
Drake's Recital. (BAAL, email Zule and he'll ftp you the video). She plays the viola. I was at the middle school and I looked around and realized, goddamn, she's nearly an adult! She did that thing we all did, where you avoid your parents. So Zule and I pretended to make out. Pretty funny. She did well. As she was playing, I looked around, at the parents who had cameras. I used to think people taped things because they wanted to have a small, portable, electronic device in hand as a status symbol. Now I realize, they're trying to capture the moment. The exact moment in time where their child was, and how the child was and who the child was at that moment.
Totally different paradigm, given our low infant mortality rate but roughly the same rationale for this, which is sad, but one of the first things commercial photographers did.
http://www.deathonline.net/remembering/mourning/victorian.cfm#photos