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Photography
Is there time enough to even begin to look at all the pictures that are being made?
Some cameras are designed to make nearly 10 pictures every second, that's practically a movie.
Its as if everything is being photographed all the time. Who will look at them, and when?
Is it for posterity? History?
There are probably about two dozen or less photos of president Abraham Lincoln. Our mental picture of him is based on the serious, thoughtful personality portrayed in those vintage black and white images.
There are several hundred pictures made every day of president Obama. Sometimes a few hundred or more a minute at major events. How will people of the future see him? It will be however they choose, since there is probably a picture to suit every personality, emotion, or mood.
Around the world, in the time it has taken to read this, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of pictures have been taken in the process of creating a separate ongoing photographic reality, a parallel universe based on how and what people choose to see, instead of what actually is.
Some cameras are designed to make nearly 10 pictures every second, that's practically a movie.
Its as if everything is being photographed all the time. Who will look at them, and when?
Is it for posterity? History?
There are probably about two dozen or less photos of president Abraham Lincoln. Our mental picture of him is based on the serious, thoughtful personality portrayed in those vintage black and white images.
There are several hundred pictures made every day of president Obama. Sometimes a few hundred or more a minute at major events. How will people of the future see him? It will be however they choose, since there is probably a picture to suit every personality, emotion, or mood.
Around the world, in the time it has taken to read this, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of pictures have been taken in the process of creating a separate ongoing photographic reality, a parallel universe based on how and what people choose to see, instead of what actually is.
posted by Megalopolis at
5:41 PM
1 Comments:
Geoff, I appreciate your thoughtfulness on this. As someone who takes a LOT of photos for my work and my family, I do wonder how I will ever find time to look at them all, much less turn them into something useful. This is why so many services (Shutterfly, Snapfish, Picasa, The Reporter!) are trying to figure this out. I did not know that about Abraham Lincoln, either...very interesting. I do wonder how future generations will view this age of information overload. Is it possible that when we have such vast amounts of information at our fingertips, that we still can be woefully misinformed? It's an odd contradiction.
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