Snap Ya Later

Trying to strike a healthy balance between enjoying life and documenting it

First up: this is not about alligators (although I was once lucky enough to snap a croc without it snapping at me!).

It’s about our cameras being front and centre.

It’s not about artistic photography either.

It’s about compulsive snapping, and an attempt at gradually reverting back to more organic, healthier ways of living.

How many pictures is too many in your gallery?

Over 15,000 photos and videos were in my camera roll.

I cleared them all.

My phone feels brand new.

My photo folders, however, are bursting at the seams.

When will I get or take the time to sort through them? Is that even the right thing to do?

I’m taking pictures like I’m on burst mode all the time. I want to make sure the perfect snapshot is in there, somewhere.

I haven’t looked at many of these for months, even years.

Should I take less pics?

A voice inside me answers with a resounding: high time you did!

I want to model the opposite of what I’ve been doing

My child asked for the camera so she could take a picture of me.

Now I couldn’t see or get through to her — her face was behind the phone and she was absorbed in the task.

How patient she’s been for years now with me asking her to:

‘stay still, please’

‘stand over there, would you?’

‘gimme just a quick smile, darling’…

How patient she is, when I ask for:

‘just a second, I’m taking a picture of this beautiful flower’…

We don’t realise it, but our children have the patience of a saint.

Do I want to keep frantically reaching for my camera in pursuit of the perfect pic?

Need we document each exciting portion of our day?

I’m trying not to, for the sake of shared moments.

But I’ll admit it is very frustrating to pass on the ‘perfect photo opportunity’.

And when you’ve children, cats, dogs or anyone you dearly love, the perfect photo opportunity happens all the time.

I’ve seen it on other people’s galleries. They’re filled with children, and/or cats, dogs.

It’s as if we didn’t deem ourselves good enough recipients of all these great moments.

As if we didn’t trust ourselves to enjoy these enough, as if they were too great for the moment itself.

Can you see the dichotomy?

If our best moments are too good to be simply enjoyed, not to be called up as a video in future, not to be printed as immutable proof of the richness of life, then we may be missing the whole point.

For these supposed best moments are in facts moments of fracture, where we step out of the here and now to worry about holding this moment (seemingly) forever.

Right in the middle of writing this article, which has been sitting on my mind for weeks, I stumble across not one, but two great articles by Dr Ishrat Bano and Thomas Oppong on writer-philosopher Alan Watts.

He’s inspired the likes of Eckhart Tolle, who famously wrote The Power Of Now.

This is another nudge in the right direction: document less, live more.

Who wants to try this experiment with me?

If cameras are front and centre, where’s the backup?

Right now, I don’t have nearly as many albums to show for all the frenetic photo activity I’ve engaged in.

My front and centre has virtually no back. Not on paper, and not even digitally, in some cases.

4 years of pictures vanished with a lost external harddrive.

“This will teach me a lesson”, I thought.

Take less photos, take less photos, take less…

I am yet to implement this.

I’m aiming at taking as little pictures as my time allows me to back up in tangible form for each year.

Starting next year…

And because self-awareness is the first step to self-development, I’ll leave you with some facts.

Some digital photography facts

Selfies

I haven’t even mentioned them. According to this source, as appears on this photographer’s website, “people take more photos of themselves than they do of their friends or family”.

Wow. No comment.

I’d love to read posts about this phenomenon, though.

Average number of photos per day

The same source as cited above mentions that “according to a survey conducted by InfoTrends, a market research firm, the average person takes around 22 photos daily”.

Fancy sorting through 8,000 photos during the festive season, only to end up with hundreds more following New Year’s Eve?

Devices used to take pictures

According to data gathering platform Statista and for 2017, 85% of photos taken were captured on smartphone.

Considering how long we spend on our phones checking social media messages, this device can fast become disruptive of the harmony in a parent-child relationship.

So, next time you take out that camera, think:

• what does it feel like for the person being photographed?
• am I interrupting the flow?
• am I steering away from life happening by staging everything for a picture?
• do I not prefer to cherish the moment, right now?
• does it really have to be?

I hope you found those lines relatable and insightful.

Your comments help me develop my train of thought and lead to more posts like these. I’d really appreciate you adding your layer of understanding on this topic in the comments section.

Thank you very much for reading!