How many times have we seen it – a group of people taking pictures of some interesting scene or event with their phones, then showing their screens to each other as if to show off what they saw.  But did they actually see the scene itself, or are they experiencing it only through their pictures?  Will they only remember an event by looking at it on their phones?  I wonder.

When our kids were growing up, back in the dark ages of film, camcorders were becoming “the thing” among cool parents.  Dads walked around school events with their “mini-cams” on their shoulder, documenting the events like a White House cameraman during a press conference.  Kathy & I resisted, preferring instead to experience the events through our eyes and remembering them in our memories.  We have still pictures, sure, but don’t have boxes and boxes of videotape that will never be watched.  But the memories are precious and remain in our minds.

I just read an article in the New York Times titled “Is the Immediate Playback of Events Changing Children’s Memories?”  In it, the writer recalls a piano recital given by her daughter.  The writer’s mother recorded the performance on her phone, and as the mother went to replay it 30 minutes later, “When I saw my mother’s finger hovering over “play” on her phone, my daughter leaning over her shoulder, I stopped her: “You know what … let’s just let her enjoy the moment.”

I think that sentiment applies to everyone, not just children.  Having a camera with us all the time, whether a “real” camera or a phone, causes our initial reaction to something to be an urge to photograph it instead of just looking at it and enjoying the moment.  It disconnects us instead of connecting us.

It’s an interesting article so I won’t repeat it here, other than the final paragraph:

“It’s been a week since my daughter’s performance. “I can’t believe it’s over!” she says twirling around the kitchen. She knows I have a video of the performance, but, interestingly enough, she hasn’t asked to see it, and I haven’t volunteered it. I think I’ll let us both remember it just as it was that night for now: raw and unfiltered, and from our own perspectives, perfect.”

Think about that when we spend our time composing photographs through that little viewfinder or on that little screen.  Remember to experience the world with our eyes, too.  I’ve often told people that the quality of the photograph is less important than the quality of the memory.  And that memory lives on long after the pixels are filed away on some hard drive.