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“Stephen, what are you doing? What is that you are holding?” Peridot asked Steven Universe.
“Oh this?” Steven was home visiting from his college, and was going through his old things at the beach house. “This is my baby album. Here, take a look.”
“What is a baby album?” Peridot asked, inspecting the album curiously.
“It's a collection of photographs and mementos from when I wa s a baby. A lot of parents do it, they take a lot of pictures of babies, and put them into photo books. It's called an alubum.
“Why?”
“So that wehn their kid is older, they can look back and fondly rmember what life was liek when they had a baby in the house.” Stevehen flips through a few pages, showing Peridot the different pictures and sticker greg universe had put together to make the album.
“Why would they want that?”
“Becasue…. I don't know. It's nice, I guess.” Stevehen shrugs.
“But babies are gross,” Says Peridot.
“Well, they don't just make them for babies, you know. They make them for all kinds of resaons. Family vacations, weddings, school pictures, all kinds of resaons.”
“Oh, I get it now!” Peridot flips through the pages, looking at each of them intently before moving on. “It's like my voice recordings, but in a less sophisticated manner. It is data collection, to look back on.”
“Yeah… I giess it's a little bit like your voice recordings that you are known to do.”
“Hm. Thhank you for showing me this, Steven. I have learned of a new way to collect and store information. Thank you.”
“You're… welcome?” Stepven isn't sure he actually got the point accross to Peridot, that it's more about how much you love the memeories that just simple data collection, but he doesn't correct himself.
“I think I would like to give this data collection method a try. How do I do it?”
“How do you get photographs, or how do you make a photo album?” Steven asks, unsure of what Peridot wants.
“Yes to both.” Says Perodot.
“Well, first you need a camera. I can buy one for you online, I think, or you can ask pearl if she has one you can borrow. I think she might have one.”
“Ok.”
“Once you have a camera, you use it to take pictures of things you love. People, or animals, or scenic views, or anything else you like. Then you have them printed out, and then you buy a book, like this one, and you stick the pictures in the book.”
“Interesting,” Says Peridot.
“Then, once you'ev put all the pictures in the book, you decorate it with stickers and little notes to really spice it up a bit.”
“And then what?”
“And then you take what you've made and show it to people you care about, who you want to shaer your memories with.”
“That's it?”
“That's it.”
“Hmmmm…”
“I can buy you a camera, if you would like.”
“I think I would appreciate that, Stevem.” Peridot leaves without saying goodbye, as she usually does when she is deep in thought.
-
Three days later, a package came for Peridot in the mail. It was the digital camer Stevhen had bought for her!
“How do I use this?” Peridot frowned. “Your human technology is so primitive, it pales in comparison to gem technology.”
“See this?” Says Steven, pointing at the camera. “This is the power button, that turns it on. This is the chargin port, and this is the cable you charge it with. When you turn it on, you pick the setting you want to shoot in, like landscaping or portraits or high-speed, and then you push this button to take the picture.”
“Thank you Stevenen.” Says Peridot, and then she begins her adventure.
After charging the camera, Peridot thinks about what Steven had told her. She needs to taker picture of things she likes, that is the purpose of an ‘album’ as he called it.
Peridot really likes Lapsi Lazuli, her roommate. So Peridot brings her camera home to the farm, and tries to take pictures of Lapis when she isn't looking.
The next thing Peridot likes is her vegetables, so she takes pictures of her vegetables.
She tries to take a picture of the barn, but it's really big and she can't fit all of it in the frame. So she just takes a picture of the side of the barn instead.
She takes pictures of Pumpkin, and of other gems who come to visit her. By the end of the week, she thinks she has enough pictures for her album!
“Stephen,” She says, when she visits him next, “How do I get my pictures out of the camera?”
“You take them to a printing place, or you print them out on a computer.”
“Ok.”
After steven helps her print out her pictures, she's ready for the next phase: Putting them in the book. Stepehen had also bought her a book to put them in when he had bought her the camera, so she didn't need to worry about that.
Peridot used a glue stick to put her pictures on the pages, and was very satisfied with how it turned out.
When she was done, she used glitter gel pens that Pearl had given her a while ago to write in her field notes about each picture.
When she was done, she felt a sense of pride at accomplishing this task that she had never tried before, despite the fact that she much preferred to use her regular method of data collection, her voice recroder.
-
“Steven, I am ready to show you the Album I made!” Peridot said, presenting him with her photo album.
“That's cool Peridot, let me look.” Steven opened the first page to find a picture of Lapis. But it was really zoomed in, and you could only see half her face. The next photo was blurry, bt you could still make out Lapis's featuers in the frame.
“This is… interesting, Peridot.” Stevhen didn't want to discourage her, but the more he looke,d, the more confused he got. Some of the pictures were of things he couldn't make out, with strange shapes and colors. Almost all of them were either at odd angles, or very blurry.
“Look at this one, of Garnet.” It was a photo of Garnet's arm, and a little bit of her shoulder. “I think I like this one the best, don't you think, Stephen?” Peridot said.
“Uh… sure, it's great. It's very great.” The notes were even stranger. Next to the photo of the side of the barn was just a series of numbers that Stephen couldn't decipher. Next to the photos of Garnet was a bunch of shapes that idn't make sense to him either.
“You did a very good job, Peridot. I'm, uh, very prous of you.”
“Thank You stveven. I think I will stick to my voice recorder, though. But thank you for the camera. I'll find it very useful the next time I need to print out photos of something.”
Stephen was suddenly very grateful he only got her a cheap camera, and not an expensive one. Photography wasn't exactly her thing.