Do you remember the traditional camera, a box-like thing with a lens in front and something black and plastic-like called the film inside? The film served the useful purpose of limiting the number of photographs that could be taken, therefore ensuring that people were judicious in using the camera, taking pictures only when needed.
Then came the digital camera. Immediately the need for thrift and common sense vanished. Instead of limiting themselves to perhaps 20 pictures of their child’s birthday party, people took 200. Where earlier animal lovers might have exhausted a full reel on a visit to the zoo, returning home with 36 photographs, they started taking 36 of each animal! I once took a visiting friend, his family and their newly purchased digital camera to the zoo. The 17-year-old daughter, assigned as official photographer, was enthusiastic and unrelenting in her duty. I felt sorry for her, clicking so furiously that she did not have the time to view a single animal through her naked eye.
“Why don’t you look at the animals, Ritu,” I asked, reaching for her camera. “Let me hold that for a while.”
She pulled the camera close to her chest and looked at me as if a trunk had replaced my nose. “Why? I’ve captured all the animals here and I can see them later at leisure, on the computer.”
However, even the most prolific digital photographers didn’t carry the camera everywhere. So they only photographed worthy occasions such as birthdays, weddings and zoo visits. And they could share these only after removing the card from their camera and loading it onto their computer.
But now, with the smart phone and its built-in camera, things have got out of hand. People carry the phone everywhere and therefore take photographs, or make video recordings, of everything… and then share these instantly. At the receiving end of this habit, I’ve had to view, in still and moving format, trivial things in people’s lives such as the view from their front door, back door and bathroom window; the dresses they fancy on mannequins in shop fronts they pass; their dogs in different poses; their neighbour’s lawn; and, for variety, their dogs sitting on their neighbour’s lawn in different poses.
Among the worst offenders are couples with a new baby. In the old days one could avoid visiting them and therefore avoid the painful task of going through photograph albums (all of the same baby). But that strategy no longer works because these couples now carry the albums with them. With an eager flick of a forefinger, they scroll through photographs of their baby in every conceivable moment of its tiny life, with an average of six examples of each moment. These photographs might perhaps be captivating to the infant’s grandparents but not to anyone else. Talking of grandparents, earlier they could only talk about the exploits of their “miraculous grandkid”; now they are also armed and dangerous, carrying a full set of the same photographs on their phone.
People recommend restaurants they’ve visited by showing pictures of the entrance, the manager, the waiter, the other guests, the menu card, their food before it was served, the food being eaten and the empty plate depicting how much they had enjoyed it. And as proof that they really visited the restaurant (and didn’t merely copy the pictures from someone else’s phone), they show you selfies, with themselves prominent and upfront in each picture and the restaurant entrance, for example, a blur in the background.
It appears to me that people are walking backwards through life, taking selfies. Today my friend’s daughter’s zoo pictures would show the animals behind her, props to her selfie.
These days, big sporting events are covered beautifully by a professional television and press crew using hi-tech equipment. Thanks to Google and YouTube these photographs and videos are available the next day. Yet many spectators also capture the match on their smart phones! At a football match we went to watch together, my friend recorded most of the proceedings on his phone. When I glanced at his screen, everything was blurred and jerky. I had difficulty spotting the ball and whether anyone had possession of it (and if so, which team the person belonged to). But since he was recording the match so assiduously, he watched most of it on his screen.
Afterwards he sighed and said, “Fantastic match! I’m so glad I came. I’ve got most of it here.” He tapped his phone proudly.
“And when will you watch it,” I asked.
“Oh, any time,” he said vaguely. “What’s important is that I have it.”
He then told me about a tennis match that he had attended live.
“It was a night match,” he said. “And the players kept complaining that the flashes from cameras all over the stands were disturbing them.”
Before I could sympathise with the players, he continued. “Isn’t it ridiculous, in today’s day and age? If someone cannot handle the innocent flashes from a mobile phone camera, they have no business to be playing professional tennis.”
(Paddy Rangappa is a freelance writer based in Singapore)
