Years ago I got up sold on a new flip phone that at the time had a unique feature that no other cell phone was capable of: the ability to take a photo! Those in your 20s don’t get it, but it’s almost hard to believe that cell phones weren’t always able to take photos and that we used to pack around with us our little simple point-and-shoot cameras to capture the highlights of our day.

I let myself get talked into the phone upgrade, even though the salesman confessed the picture quality was horrible and it’s basically just a feature you use when you forget your real camera. I didn’t care; I wanted it anyway. If nothing else it gave me bragging rights over my friends – although we were all still texting using the number keys so looking back now our phones still had a long way to go. Besides, the photo feature was basically useless because there was no way to get your pics off of the phone anyway. Keep in mind this was well before any of us were even dreaming about accessing our email on a phone. I’m pretty sure kids in high school right now consider this era to be the Dark Ages.

Today, point-and-shoot cameras are as current as a Blockbuster video store, since smartphones now rule our world. Right or wrong, most of us pack our cell phones around like Western gunslingers. A cowboy will forget his Skoal before we accidentally leave our cell phone behind. Our phones are capable of doing a lot more than just dialing a phone number, and this includes being able to take high-quality photos. 

With this advance in camera technology, as a society we’re capturing all kinds of moments that would have been missed otherwise because not everyone always had a camera with him (or if he did, did he remember to check to see if there was any film in it?) Let’s face it. Without camera phones, YouTube probably never gets developed.

Simply put, a lot of great and fun things are happening to houseboaters every day and we want to recognize those moments in our magazine. So we’re creating a little more space in our publication to highlight the photos taken by our readers who have posted them on our Facebook page or have sent the pic directly to us. As much as we’d like to as Houseboat Magazine would like to be everywhere, on every lake and at every gathering, the reality is that it’s just not possible. That’s where you come in, dear reader. We’ve created a Reader Submission section in our magazine and each time we go to print, we want to include the best photos we receive. The top choices will appear in our print magazine and for those who prefer the digital version, we’ll include a link so you’re able to see even more photos of other houseboaters having fun.

We’re betting that as you’re reading this column a couple of photos that are currently saved on your phone have already popped into your head and you’re thinking it might be fun to see them in print.

Speaking of always having a camera phone with you, you might also notice another new feature in our Bow To Stern section that we’re calling, “Houseboats In Unusual Places.” The title says it all: we’re looking for submissions from you as you’re exploring the many different places you can houseboat. If you houseboat in an usual place or you’re ever surprised to find a houseboat during one of your adventures, snap a photo and send it our way with some details and we’d love to highlight that in our publication as well.

Now if you still currently use a flip phone, we still want to hear from you. We won’t snub you like a teenager might for not advancing with technology, but we will need you to pull out your point-and-shoot camera so you can mail us that photo.