FWIW Immersive Videos on Vision Pro are breathtaking. Even simple scenes from around the house, everyday events, become mesmerizing, they're SO real.... it's a whole different feeling/experience from videos.
On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots
191–200 of 333 posts
Re: On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots
#192When you get older, you realize how memories fade, how they disappear, and that’s when you wish you had taken more pictures. I am not talking about young folks shooting photos for the sake of getting likes. I am talking about precious moments, a picture here, a picture there. They will help trigger lost memories. For what is our identity if not a string of recollections we have?
I've noticed that of all the hundreds of thousands of family images I have taken, everyone wants to watch the tens of thousands of videos I took simultaneously. With video, you can recollect better people's personalities, get more of a sense of the moment. Pictures are great, though imho videos surpass.
A problem I have, and I'd guess a lot of people now have, is organization. We have the ability to easily capture content, and even easier now organize it via albums. But you have to build your own "system" of organization. And now we use our camera for mundane things, like screenshots, reminders, documentation, etc. so the amount of new data is just ever increasing.
My parents had a camcorder that was out for special occasions. The organization is automatically chronological, everything is a highlight because there are (relatively) way fewer videos, and if you sit down to watch them, you get a multi-month span, with multiple events on a single tape.
Apple/Google Photos attempt to recreate some of this by grouping & generating videos, but for me it doesn't have quite the same feeling, they are usually too specific like "Trip to NY" rather than "November/December 1997".
Re: On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots
#193It is funny that we are reading this now and it makes sense. Imagine in the future where LLM/Diffusion agents are the norms. We will get blog about "No Not using LLM -- Cultivating your critical thinking skills/(coding or whatever fill in the blank tasks that we eventually figure how to get machines to do on our behave"
Re: On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
Few people have the time to sit and write a journal each day. I tried and it became a burden, a dread before bed time. Sleep won out. Journals can also be electively subjective. Yes, a photo can be framed or posed, but it's harder to edit awkward truths out of a photo rather than omitting them from a journal.
"Few people have the time to sit and write a journal each day." Yet many people seem to have the time to sink in endless time on Netflix, FB, Insta, candycrush or doomscrolling somewhere else.
Have you also noticed that the quality of people's handwriting is inversely proportional to the amount of time spent on these platforms?
( I have no data and I made this up)
Re: On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots
#195I think there is a difference between not actually looking at the event/object because you want to make photos (or make a perfect photo), vs just ensuring that essential stuff you see got at least a photo.
Nowadays I make a conscious effort, if I am going for some trip/event, to always make at least one photo, so I can remember it. And by now I have photos arranged in a timeline spanning > 20 years, and it is extremely enjoyable to browse it all to remember.
Re: On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots
#196When you get older, you realize how memories fade, how they disappear, and that’s when you wish you had taken more pictures. I am not talking about young folks shooting photos for the sake of getting likes. I am talking about precious moments, a picture here, a picture there. They will help trigger lost memories. For what is our identity if not a string of recollections we have?
It's quite nice to scroll through photos (to search for something, or not) and bring back some memories that were left in there but a bit forgotten.
Re: On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is old advice, I remember it being framed as "if I wanted a picture of a monument I'd buy a postcard", and postcards basically no longer exist. It made some sense to take pictures of panoramas or art when you could show something to people that could not see it otherwise, but in this era it makes no sense (unless you enjoy photography as a hobby). A goofy picture of you kissing some old bronze statue? Dumb, but…
It’s not just “making it your own”. I took the girls all around the US, around the world even as they were growing up. I had grown up in a “camera family” so always had one on trips as a parent too. Now, with two decades behind me, the photos of my young daughters, wife are the vacation photos I return to. Oldest daughter is wearing a kimono sipping tea at some place in the mountains of Japan… Two youngest are chasin…
I suspect those photos would have been as precious to you if they were taken in your backyard.
Re: On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pictures are one way, there are other ways too like writing a journal. Camera after all is a recent invention.
Few people have the time to sit and write a journal each day. I tried and it became a burden, a dread before bed time. Sleep won out. Journals can also be electively subjective. Yes, a photo can be framed or posed, but it's harder to edit awkward truths out of a photo rather than omitting them from a journal.
I keep a journal. I write in it when there's something on my mind. I don't force myself to write in it every day, or at all, that would be ludicrous. Sometimes I write in it all of the time. Deep thoughts about life get indiscriminately mixed in with movie reviews, shopping lists and the fact that the name of the guy who unblocked the drains was Nigel. I write more than I read. Sometimes I search it for practical information (what was his name again?) which is why I keep it digital.
So if I really want to, I can find out how I was generally feeling in, say, 2006, and what sort of questions were on my mind and what ideas I had. Usually the answers are: pretty much the same, and stupid ones, kind of like today but worse. So it turns out that I don't want to review my journal much. But I only know that I don't want to because I have the option, so it has a reassuring function, and writing helps me think in the first place.
When it comes to photos, though, I'm with Ray Davies:
People take pictures of the Summer
Just in case someone thought they had missed it
And to prove that it really existed
People take pictures of each other
Just to prove that they really existed
Don't show me no more, please
Re: On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots
#199When you get older, you realize how memories fade, how they disappear, and that’s when you wish you had taken more pictures. I am not talking about young folks shooting photos for the sake of getting likes. I am talking about precious moments, a picture here, a picture there. They will help trigger lost memories. For what is our identity if not a string of recollections we have?
I've noticed that of all the hundreds of thousands of family images I have taken, everyone wants to watch the tens of thousands of videos I took simultaneously. With video, you can recollect better people's personalities, get more of a sense of the moment. Pictures are great, though imho videos surpass.
I enjoying the freeing Live Photos. Sometimes I wish they were just a little longer.
Re: On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots
#200When you get older, you realize how memories fade, how they disappear, and that’s when you wish you had taken more pictures. I am not talking about young folks shooting photos for the sake of getting likes. I am talking about precious moments, a picture here, a picture there. They will help trigger lost memories. For what is our identity if not a string of recollections we have?
Yes, I completely disagree with this post for this very reason. Who cares if the photos are “generic”? Also this post doesn’t even include videos. To cheat yourself out of a 2D Time Machine just tells me that you’re still young. A better discussion would be what would be the ideal device for capturing memories that also allow you to live and participate in the moment?