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On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots

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Re: On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots

#281

Post by throwawaybob420 »

memhole wrote: post #46
andrehacker wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was young and easily swayed, I took life advice from a well-known Dutch comedian (Youp van 't Hek) who loved to mock tourists taking those cringe “holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa” photos. The message was clear: tourist photos were tacky, and besides, you could always find a better photo in the gift shop anyway. So for years, I smugly avoided taking photos—too cool for clichés. It only hit me much later th…

On a backpacking trip, a guy and I were hiking together for a moment. I was snapping photos of the landscape and he started to chastise me for it. He made the same point. It’s about the people you’re with. Eventually, all the photos blur together. He’s not wrong. I’ve got tons of pictures of the outdoors. Not that they aren’t beautiful. Pressed, I mostly couldn’t tell one from the other.

That guy sounds like a dick.

Re: On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots

#282

Post by throwawaybob420 »

cryptoegorophy wrote: post #268
throwawaybob420 wrote: post #266

Very pretentious article. And some of these comments are highly self absorbed to be honest. Have fun “remembering” your vacation and various moments of your life, I’ll be looking over my photos and videos when I’m 80.

Exactly. People were saying apple’s Live Photo feature was a scam. I was heavily using it with kids growing up, now it is awesome to look at those photos/mini videos together with kids. You will definitely not remember a lot of moments with your kids, so try to video record as much as you can.

What I’ve noticed a lot on this site is that people tend to act as if there’s somehow better than the “average person”, and then when you actually think about it, it’s like looking at myself when I was 16 and never growing up.

Re: On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots

#283

Post by socalgal2 »

vachina wrote: post #130
planck_tonne wrote: post #11

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…

Some questions I ask myself before I take the camera out: 1. Is it a picture someone else would’ve already taken? 2. Does it have our faces in it? 3. Will it have historical significance in 10 years time? If all of it answers no, I rest easy knowing I missed nothing.

I have at least 140k digital photos (almost 30 years of digital camera / camera phone usage). They are all uploaded into google photos, not for archiving, just to have easy access. I look up and reference stuff all the time and while doing so I see lots of things that trigger memories. Many of those are "a picture someone else would’ve already taken" like famous places but it doesn't matter. If they weren't in my photo collection then they wouldn't be there to bring back memories. Further, they are my picture of the time/place/date/weather when I was there. Sure I look up pictures of the Grand Canyon or Times Square or the London Eye or the Eiffel Tower, those are not as powerful for my own use as the pictures I took.

Speaking of which, I'd get even more use of these pictures if Google photo search was better. I'm looking forward to when some photo service is 1000x better for searching. Right now if I put I can put in "dog" and see that it's listing too many photos with no dog or pictures with "hot-dog". If I enter "black dog" it shows pictures with black color somewhere in the picture, like a shadow, and a dog. If I enter "dog with black hair" it says no results, even though I pictures of black labs. I tried "dog on beach". I know I have some. "dog in pool" got two results by I know a very dear picture of my younger sister with our dog in the pool and it didn't find it.

Looking forward to LLM/AI enhanced photo search so I can just say "show me photos of my sister in the pool with our dog" or "show me pictures of my trip to paris with my mom". As it, I have to find these through other means (remembeing the date, etc...)

Re: On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots

#284

Post by jakubmazanec »

People with Aphantasia [1] can have less vivid autobiographical memories [2], so for them it might make sense to make more photos. As usual, this "advice" is rather condescending: I'm a professional photographer and even my photos "weren't worth it" (per the article), so why do you, person of common talent who takes too many photos anyway, even bother?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia

[2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7308278/

Re: On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots

#286

Post by tristor »

I think phones/snapshot culture definitely creates a lack of engagement. It's more of a photo to say "I was there" than for any particular purpose. But creative photography, as an artform, actually connects you to your subjects and engages you in a way which doesn't happen approaching the same situation without the camera. The camera is just a tool, and its your intent that matters.

Re: On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots

#287

Post by dghughes »

planck_tonne wrote: post #11

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…

My story is when my Dad died and my family looked for a nice picture of him to use in his obituary it was difficult to do. Why? Nearly all pictures were birthdays, Christmas, maybe Thanksgiving, repeat. No spontaneous pictures just the basic holidays.

I'm sure I did sneak a few candid pictures over the years but that leads to another issue a sea of unsorted pictures on who knows what media.

Also elderly people not good with technology, the cost of it, may be embarrassed to say often no longer take pictures.

Re: On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots

#288

Post by shnpln »

Daviey wrote: post #149

As a teenager, I used to regularly say "I'd rather look at life for real than through a view-finder of a camera" 30 years later I now know how wrong I was. I regret not taking photos of everything I could. So many lost memories.

I think the answer is in the middle. Take the time to take a ton of photos. Then put the camera down and take the time to just live the moment. Both have validity.

Re: On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots

#289

Post by assimpleaspossi »

andrehacker wrote: post #30
planck_tonne wrote: post #11

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…

When I was young and easily swayed, I took life advice from a well-known Dutch comedian (Youp van 't Hek) who loved to mock tourists taking those cringe “holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa” photos. The message was clear: tourist photos were tacky, and besides, you could always find a better photo in the gift shop anyway. So for years, I smugly avoided taking photos—too cool for clichés. It only hit me much later th…

I've started more traveling the world the past two years. The pictures I review when I get back didn't seem as interesting as those with my wife in the scene. Even a crowded street scene with multicolored houses was just OK except the one with my wife looking at a fruit stand.

From now on, I will include my travel companions whenever I can.

Re: On Not Carrying a Camera – Cultivating memories instead of snapshots

#290

Post by fma »

ioma8 wrote: post #127
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who refuses to take pictures without people in them. It seemed dumb at first but after several years of pictures piling up I can see he had a pretty good point.

This is really important point. Photos without people can be art. But photos with people capture memories. As a photographer I had to learn this with time and blurry, bad angled picture with favourite people capturing precious moment is zilions times more valuable (at least to me) than perfect picture of some architecture I took.

About 15 years ago, I was traveling and taking some photos with my gf at the time. I remember this photographer with a very professional camera, like one of those you see on the sports field. He made some comment towards us, trying to joke.. Why do people take photos of themselves, you know what they look like.

For a moment I thought...he's right, I see myself and my girlfriend all the time.

Then I realized...objects, never change, why do you take it. What makes your photo unique? He was by himself, taking photos. He has no one to capture his moment.

Although I don't disagree with him - I do have some nice landscape and photos, of just trees, mountains, and of course tourist buildings. But in modern times...I will always take a photo with, and without people.

Sometimes I look back and I am in the mood to just look at places I've visited, sometimes, I want to look a who I visited with.

I hope that man found someone he enjoys taking photos with/of.

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