The death of pictures began with the advent of the shoebox. However, if you don't have a shoebox full of pictures like I do, then you probably have a folder (or 10) full of them on your laptop, like I do-- and there they rest, left undisturbed for essentially ever.

That is comical, but all joking matters aside-- our pictures are collecting dust and fading into nothingness. Mine are at least and it saddens me. I caught myself thinking about how I used to love taking pictures. I started wondering what happened to that love and what happened to those pictures. The ones that weren't unviewed in my albums, collecting dust in my shoebox or wasting away in a folder on my computer were still left to be taken-- I realized. I remembered that my nephew's wedding was next month and maybe that's why I started thinking about pictures all together.

Besides the pictures that were left undisturbed and to waste, I had a grand engagement to take pictures at and I looked forward to it. I love pictures and all of the excitement they bring, but it seems as if they've lost their place in our culture. Except for picture- messaging and good, old-fashion frames pictures are nearly nonexistent now.

That's when I discovered a new way share my pictures with those I love. I came across this website that takes my pictures-- be they in a shoebox, album, bag, folder or what have you --and they put them into a fully-animated slideshow for you. They created a theme, and added custom backgrounds, animated titles, and even wrote a poem. At first I was skeptical, I thought slideshows were for business and school only-- I'm serious. I hadn't even considered slideshows, but they took pictures of my daughter's baby shower 7 years ago and made them dynamic. They put the slideshow on a DVD that I can show family and friends-- in person or by email.

In just a few weeks , I'll try to take the best pictures of Dylan's marriage. Then I'll have a custom slideshow made afterwards. I'll send it to everyone that is important to me as a gift; they'll love it. Then in a few years, when I'm entertaining them as guests, I'll sneak up stairs and remove on of those DVDs from my shoebox and bring the surprise down to everyone below-- a dynamic, fully-animated, professional, enrapturing presentation of pictures.

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(c) Shock Events Miami (2008) Brenday Everett- freelance writer. Memories are one of the best things life has given us. To create your own personalized slideshow visit Shock Events Miami