131–140 of 333 posts
There must be a balance. Recently I met some people that were constantly filming and taking pictures of everything. It was ridiculous IMO, for the same reasons OP mentions. This is not new. For me, it began with the rise of the smartphone. So I made it a point not to waste my time photographing things. 10 years later, I regret having essentially no pictures of anything. In particular, no "good" or "frameable" picture…
I struggle to relate to this. I have aphantasia, which means I can’t see anything in my mind’s eye. This is most painful when I try to “imagine” my wife’s face, my family, friends, favorite parts of nature, etc, but am left with nothing. For me, this means that I struggle to remember things from my past beyond major life events. Even major events can be fuzzy for me. As a result, I’ve always tried to snap quick pictu…
I was shocked when the shutter on my Nikon D40 wore out, I didn't know that was a thing. I was really into manually aligned computational photography for the decade I rode the train to Chicago. I've got half a terabyte of photos and short videos. I doubt that sproutlet will want much of it once I'm gone, but the photos helped make friends, and build friendships over the years, and bring me joy when I look back on them.
Long covid took me out of the game, and I'm just starting to get back into it. While they are better than the old point and shoots from the start of the digital camera era, Smartphone Cameras still suck compared to a DSLR when it comes to image composition and just getting the focus on the right thing.
Though one of the situations where I might judge is if someone spends a lot of time and effort during the birth of their child to get the perfect shot. I can't fathom the reasoning.
I absolutely love looking at the pictures and sharing them with family. My child is growing and I have a ton of pictures from different times of her life. I regret none of them. The failed ones as well.
Not only they remind me of the tiny beautiful things I saw and experienced, they have their own distinct look which I adore. And you get to do a lot of things: a friend asks you to photograph their handmade product. You get to take group photos at family gatherings which are than shared by everyone. And I'm nowhere near being a professional photographer.
So yeah, I encourage everyone to carry a camera everywhere.
There must be a balance. Recently I met some people that were constantly filming and taking pictures of everything. It was ridiculous IMO, for the same reasons OP mentions. This is not new. For me, it began with the rise of the smartphone. So I made it a point not to waste my time photographing things. 10 years later, I regret having essentially no pictures of anything. In particular, no "good" or "frameable" picture…
I used to think the same. But in the end, this is not true for me personally. Having pictures of events or valuable moments does not add any (or much) value when remembering these situations. This of course may differ from person to person - but I guess we use to have this assumption from your quote as a given default. Overall I get the most "value" from focusing on situations when they are there, instead of wasting it by capturing them.
There must be a balance. Recently I met some people that were constantly filming and taking pictures of everything. It was ridiculous IMO, for the same reasons OP mentions. This is not new. For me, it began with the rise of the smartphone. So I made it a point not to waste my time photographing things. 10 years later, I regret having essentially no pictures of anything. In particular, no "good" or "frameable" picture…
Just know that somewhere there's the pile of pictures of years past, in approximately chronological order.
You will not remember what you have forgotten. When you flip through the old photos you'll remember that you did much more than you can pull straight from memory.
This becomes more valuable as you get older, not only will you likely feel that your memory is becoming lower in resolution(my memory felt photographic until late 20s, the assumption it would always be that good turned out wrong) but you'll also have more bygone years to remember from as you get older.
But don't back up photos to an SSD that is unplugged from power.
I feel bad because she takes great photos and I look forward to seeing them. I just hate when the photo becomes more important than the experience. How to balance this seems to be the point in question.