I've never been much of a photographer. My camera roll mostly consists of my kids, our dog and the occasional family vacation, Axios' Mike Zapler writes.

• But when The New York Times recently reported that film cameras are making a comeback, it got me thinking back to the analog days of my childhood.

🖼️ The big, um, picture: Before cameras documented every meal or outfit, taking a picture required a small act of faith. There was no deleting, no retaking, no checking whether everyone had their eyes open. You simply hoped.

• My introduction to cameras came in the early '80s, in the form of a rectangular hunk of plastic made by Kodak.

🎞️ How it worked: You pulled a latch that split the camera in half, dropped in a film cartridge that looked like a mini-barbell and cranked it until a "1" appeared in the little window.

• You framed the shot, pressed the button and thwack. That was it.

✨ The best part came after the roll was finished. I'd save up a few and take them to Foto Hut, the camera shop in my Pittsburgh neighborhood.

• When I picked up my prints a few days later, I'd stand on the sidewalk outside and frantically flip through them to see if there were any "good" ones.
• Every now and then, one of those snapshots became something more.

Case in point: The only tangible reminder I have of my grandfather, who died when I was 9, is a framed picture of him with a handlebar mustache and a pipe dangling from his mouth.

Flashback: My two sisters and I had a good laugh about all this — over text, naturally.

• One of them noted: "People f—ing love physical media in the age of total disconnection caused by the media that was meant to connect us."

🧳 Zoom in: In my basement is a small suitcase of film photos from my college and post-college years — roughly from the '90s to 2005, when I got my first digital camera.

• I hadn't touched it in probably 15 years.
• But a few months ago, I found my 13-year-old daughter digging through the suitcase.
• Amused and transfixed, she pointed out pictures of a younger version of her father, his exceedingly hairy friends from Oberlin College and a few old girlfriends.

🕰️ The bottom line: I'm a sucker for nostalgia. Though I suspect reminiscing about those old hunks of plastic is almost as much fun as using them was.

• The day after the text exchange with my sisters, a picture popped up in the same chat of one of their grandchildren sporting an adorable fountain ponytail.
• My '80s mind would have been blown.

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Acadia National Park in Maine is reader and New Yorker Matthew Kalinowski's favorite national park because of the beauty it offers in a compact area.

• Last summer, Kalinowski's kids treated it like "the giant natural playground that it is," he writes, "splashing at the edge of peaceful ponds that housed frogs and ducks," and taking in views of tree-lined mountains meeting the deep blue Atlantic.

💎 Below: Jordan Pond, a glacier-carved lake in the park — often called the "crown jewel" of the park's many ponds for its clarity and depth.