As I was editing the images from this last Saturday’s wedding, I came across this image. “Wow, that’s a lot of cameras!” I thought. I counted them, and I could find 16 in this one shot. There were actually many more in the audience, I just couldn’t see them all at once. I couldn’t even see my second up there somewhere near the groom.
Speaking of which, you can barely see the groom!
Before the advent of digital cameras, and especially cell phone cameras, this image would have shown many faces with beaming smiles. There also would not have been people jumping into the center aisle, inserting themselves between the bride and groom. Here, there are TWO such people.
I know that not everyone agrees, but I think this change is rather sad. Instead of people living and sharing the moment, they are instead busy fiddling with the settings, chimping, or trying to frame that perfect shot—thereby missing most of what happened.
I know this, because I’ve always been a camera geek, and brought my camera to all family functions. But with time, I realized that with a camera in my hands, I’m a different person. My mind is elsewhere—thinking f-stops, lighting, composition. What I wasn’t doing was spending time with, conversing with, learning about, and sharing with family. Appreciating the moment, with its sounds and smells and textures, not just the small visual segment I choose to put on a sensor.
So now, I usually leave my camera home. Not always, but mostly.
It brought to mind two quotes from Susan Sontag:
The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people’s reality, and eventually in one’s own.Photography is become one of the principle devices for experiencing something, for giving an appearance of participation.
2 Comments at "16 Cameras"
I doubt that Susan Sontag, who was very precise with the English language, and who knew how to spell, wrote “principle” in the sentence quoted. Principle/principal… Different words that mean different things.
Heh, heh. Of course you are correct. That’s what I get for cutting and pasting from the Internet.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/944168/Susan-Sontag-Quotes
1-3 Page 10
I can’t find my copy to confirm, but a quote from another source says “She states that photography has ‘become one of the principal devices for experiencing something, for giving an appearance of participation’.
If correct. that would mean there were two mistakes in that one sentence, “is” and “principle”.
Ray
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