In society today, many people have phones smarter than they are. Most of them have cameras. It is easy to get carried away and photograph everything in our lives-even what we had for dinner. Life happens all around us, yet we are glued to our phones and hardly look up, even to speak with another human being. As we fall farther into this world of endless possibilities and cyber relationships, we want to document everything. I have found that personal relationships lack the most photographs. When I am with friends, I can’t find my phone and don’t look for it. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”
Our lives flash by in a series of moments. We preserve the memories we hold dear, though time distorts the facts. I believe this must be the reason we create home videos, stage photographs, pose, smile, and “cheese.” When you upload a memory to your mind’s long-term hard drive, will you return to that moment after it is over? Will you remember that moment if you don’t take a picture? Does the person behind the camera save a precious moment, or lose it, as they watch the action from a different angle? Does our urge to snap a photograph prevent our first-hand experience? Watch behind a camera as your child takes their first steps. Do you treasure this moment forever, having caught it on tape, or do you miss it entirely? The videographer captures moments, trying to commemorate an occasion that won’t happen again. They are wasting beautiful pieces of life. Watching is not seeing.
–SJB