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October 27, 2005
"Making Memories in Real Time"
This article directly relates to the question that Ellen asked us last Friday "Would you rather experience something with just your own two eyes, or would you rather be equipped with a camera to capture that experience in a photograph?"
The gist of my free write was that if I were in the presence of something incredible, I would rather see it with my own two eyes and take in as much of it as I possibly could, than distance myself from it for even a few seconds by viewing it from behind a camera lens. A camera will never be able to capture images in a photograph as well as our eyes capture images and our brain stores them.
Amy Harmon's article is important because it addresses a trend occurring in our society. It seems like people are sometimes so preoccupied with trying to take a picture of something, that they miss out on the first hand experience of that thing. Harmon shows just how powerful the tendency to do this is in admitting that by the end of her trip she herself had become obsessed with taking digital pictures.
This article made me think that our world is moving way too fast. We can experience something, capture it in a digital photograph, and moments later have that photograph saved on a computer, and ready to be modified or sent out to others. Harmon points out that back in the day when we had to wait for photos to be developed and we had that "comfortable gap between experience and reflection" it forced us to solely rely on our memories of an experience for a while, rather than an image of it. If we lose this gap, and no longer need to rely on our memories, then we will most likely forget the experience sooner, and become totally dependent on images to remind us of the experience. What would become of us if something ever happened to those images? What if the computer they were stored on crashes and they are all lost? Our pasts would be lost. It makes you wonder if we rely so much on technology to the point where it has become dangerous.
Posted by lcissullivan at October 27, 2005 09:18 PM