I'm sorry you're having such a hard time with her vacation and all that it highlights for you about your relationship. It bothers me that she seems to have encouraged a level of closeness that she wasn't willing to maintain. It can't feel anything other than punitive and distancing.

As for the pictures...I take in pictures all the time. Many are photographs. We sit across from each other. I hand them to her one or two at a time and explain them. If she isn't sure who is who, she holds it up and points, asking who the person is. Once, she placed the picture standing up on the table next to her so that we could both see it, and we talked about it.

I'm sharing that just to show that it's possible to share pictures without having to sit next to each other but still interact and explain things. I also hand her my phone to look at pictures, or bring in my laptop and turn the screen around. But those are for current day digital photos. The old ones I do the other way. It works just fine.