They have essentially transformed into everyday objects. By looking into anyone's wallet, one will most likely find a picture or two of loved ones. These wallet-sized photos allow people to keep their friends and family with them at all times. Contrasting with small photos, large photos are also present throughout society. Gigantic picture advertisements known as billboards adorn the sides of many highways.
Households often have large family portraits hung in their walls at home.
Disposable cameras, camcorders, digital recording cameras, Polaroids, films, movies, and videocassette recorders further exemplify this omnipresence. With an air of nostalgia, my father says that if he could have anything in the entire world, he would want that bag back. To him, the pictures in the leather bag are important because they offer him a gateway into a past that can never be visited again. Thinking about those lost pictures, he told me about how he couldn't remember what his childhood friends looked like, and how he wished he had the pictures to see them again. He told me about the dog that he had to leave behind, and how he longed for that photograph as well.