A recent newspaper article hailed digital cameras as the new cigarette lighters at rock concerts. Apparently, audience members no longer gently sway to dulcet tunes with lit Zippos proudly extended, but rather snap, clamour and flash in a bid to capture the perfect Kodak concert moment. Although I have my doubts regarding the extent to which audience members at rock concerts these days really do resemble a rabid bunch of paparazzo, this article did make me realise something. Digital cameras are not just the new lighters at rock concerts, they have become the new ‘it’ gadget.
Almost every gathering of 3 or more people I’ve attended in the last 12 months has involved at least one person ensuring that the event will forever leave a digital footprint, usually via a Facebook profile. But why this sudden rise in the popularity of the digital camera? It’s not new technology. And what are some potential consequences of having almost every aspect our lives captured and catalogued online?
A quick look at the way in which the humble photograph has changed over the last twenty years is a good place to start when attempting to answer these questions. Over the last two decades, leaps in technology have led to the processes behind taking and sharing photos becoming faster and easier than ever before. In turn, what the amateur photographer chooses to capture on film and why and how she captures it has also changed dramatically.
Before digital technology, when and where the amateur photographer chose to use a camera was constrained by the large amount of time, effort and financial expenditure demanded by photograph production, in addition to the physical limitations of the roll of film itself. The photo was a valuable artifact which was necessarily used sparingly. Photographs only existed in a physical form, limiting the amount of people with which they could be shared and limited by the necessary time involved in this transaction.
The advent of digital technology brought about a number of changes. Films no longer had to be purchased or developed, greater volumes of photos could be taken in a shorter period of time and, most importantly, photos could be deleted at the press of a button. A digital photo consumed minimal resources, so the amateur photographer became free to snap away to her heart’s content. A photo could be taken more frequently at more events, depreciating its value. Digital technology also allowed for photos to exist in virtual and physical realms. The possibility of attaching photos to an email, uploading them to a blog or burning them to a CD allowed photos to be shared with wider networks of people in much less time than it would have taken to share their physical counterparts.
Recently, the way in which we take photos has again undergone transformation thanks to the steadily increasing amounts of people using Facebook. Although websites previously existed which enabled photo sharing, the swiftness with which photos can be uploaded and shared and the automatic news feed informing all contacts that new photos have been uploaded are features unique to Facebook. Combined with digital technology, Facebook shifts the photo sharing process into hyperdrive. As a result, the value of the photo and the threshold of what is considered photo-worthy have again been lowered.
Changes in the way in which we now capture and communicate moments via photographs have an interesting knock on effect. Emerging from the unparalleled ease and speed of photo sharing that Facebook facilitates is a new genre of photo which I shall label (very creatively) the Everyday Photo. The Everyday Photo is just that; a photo of normal, everyday, run of the mill events, ranging from the mildly interesting (house parties, nights on the town, concerts) through to the more banal (dinner with immediate family members, new haircuts/houses/pets/clothes, a recently tidied room).
The Everyday Photo creates a new genre of photo, serving a purpose almost opposite to that which was served by more traditional photo genres. Rather than preserving exceptional life moments or capturing life from a unique angle, the Everyday Photo aims to document the mundane reality of everyday life. The Everyday Photo album is an almost blog-like pictorial repository of hackneyed memories; a record of when, where and what a person did and with what group of people. The Everyday Photo is now commonplace and accepted, with Facebook spewing forth a plethora of photos displaying the daily (or at least weekend-ly) grind of millions.
Digital cameras becoming the new social ‘it’ apparatus can be explained by advances in technology drastically reducing the amount of resources needed for taking and sharing photographs. But if, as we have seen, everyday moments are being captured more and more frequently, immediately uploaded to Facebook and then simultaneously viewed by many, how might this effect our experience of everyday life? And what possible implications does the genre of the Everyday Photo hold for our day to day relationships?
The Everyday Photo holds some potential to enhance the way in which we experience everyday life.
Promoting Inclusion
Being able to scroll through and comment on detailed visual records of events is not only fun but is also a novel means of inclusion, whereby someone can feel part of an event which they were unable to physically attend.
Facilitating Relationships
Posting and commenting on the Everyday Photo facilitates the emergence of more playful sides of personality. Through encouraging the retention and discussion of shared memories, this can also lead to a heightened sense of community within a friendship group and promote depth and growth in a specific friendship.
Encouraging Diversity and Understanding
The Everyday Photo holds particular interest when it portrays an everyday reality which is radically unfamiliar. Whether the friend who took the photo lives in an exotic location, has a wild job or just enjoys hanging out in interesting places, the Everyday Photo can present the opportunity to see life from a different perspective.
Yet there are also a number of ways in which taking and posting an Everyday Photo has the potential to limit the richness of our daily life experiences.
Life Through A Lens
Perpetually hunched over a camcorder, eyes intently glued to a tiny screen, the archetypal tourist character that ensures every step taken on their holiday is recorded for later viewing pleasure will be familiar to many travellers. It seems almost laughable that exotic experiences of new sights, smells, sounds, tastes and sensations are tapered through a small LCD screen so that they can be relived on a large plasma screen at a later stage.
Yet is the numbed holiday experience of this tourist any different to the everyday life experience of an avid Everyday Photo taker and consumer? The camera is always being operated and posed for by living, breathing human beings. This carries with it the risk that everyday moments will be photographed more than they are lived. People may be so busy attempting to pose as though they are having fun that they forget how it arises spontaneously. A preoccupation with taking pictures of and with friends as a symbol of unity and close friendship may ironically leave little time and effort for nurturing these relationships.
Recent observations at a popular Sydney club confirmed that this distancing of oneself from a true engagement with life is indeed a risk posed by the Everyday Photo. Rather than immersing themselves in the music and dancing with reckless abandon as they may have in the past, clubbers would dance for a little, then pose self-consciously for a photo, then dance for a little, then pose self-consciously for another photo. Although posing is not a new phenomenon in Sydney clubs (as anyone who has ever been to a Sydney club will attest), I think that frequently holding static poses is. With clubbers more concerned with the Everyday Photo than the everyday experience, the patchy dance floor looked like a bizarre cross between a catwalk and a freeze framed video and any atmosphere that may previously have existed was quickly extinguished.
Spoiling Stories
The Everyday Photo could also threaten the much revered Australian pastime of spinning a good yarn. If the Everyday Photo album is a visual blog and you’ve scrolled through the myriad Everyday Photos I’ve posted detailing the intricacies of my life for the past month, what shape will our catch up conversation take? My guess is that it will proceed something along the lines of:
You: So what have you been up to recently?
Me: Well I went out to dinner . . .
You: With James and Ruth, yeah I saw it on Facebook, looked like fun. What else?
Me: Oh, I went and saw Radiohead . . .
You: Yeah, you were really far from the stage, I saw the photos on Facebook. What was it like?
Me: Well the sound was really loud . . .
You: Yeah I remember that photo of you cupping your ears, I thought it looked loud.
And so on and so forth.
A good story relies on mystery, on the other person not already knowing what it is you’re about to say. The Everyday Photo not only has the potential to take over the role of storyteller, it may turn a potentially rich narrative into poor and boring conversation by prematurely revealing all its punchlines.
Misleading Information
Another potentially negative ramification of the Everyday Photo is associated with the immediacy of information it reveals to others about one’s personal life. In my experience, it’s not uncommon to become Facebook friends with someone after meeting them on one occasion or even without meeting them in the flesh at all. If your profile is full of Everyday Photo albums, a virtual stranger has access to intimate levels of information about your life which are immediately and indirectly revealed to them. More interesting than the obvious privacy issues at stake here are the possible implications this revelation holds for establishing new relationships.
One popular theory in the social psychology research literature likens relationships to peeling an onion. When introduced to someone, you normally engage in conversation that goes no deeper than the onion skin. As common ground and trust are established in the relationship and as time progresses, an implicit negotiation takes place. Onion flesh begins to be peeled away layer by layer in accord with the level of information that both parties disclose to each other. In theory, lasting friendships necessarily take time to establish because this slow, mutual, unpeeling of layers is a process that cannot be hurried.
Before the Everyday Photo, if you met someone at a party and gelled with them you may be likely to ask for their phone number or email address and then the unpeeling process could begin naturally from there. Now, you may be more likely to add them as a Facebook friend. If they accepted your request and were a fan of the Everyday Photo, you would suddenly have access to layers of information that, in the past, would have required time, effort and a closer relationship with the person in order to access. The Everyday Photo takes the work out of getting to know someone.
This may be a good thing if the person turns out to be someone you don’t want to know. Sure they may now be your Facebook friend, but it cost you a lot less to find out it wasn’t a relationship worth pursuing than it would have if the Everyday Photo didn’t exist. However, the discrepancy between engagement with everyday life and what is captured in the Everyday Photo can lead to a person being (mis)judged according to their Facebook persona, which is an element, but not the totality, of their personality. An individual can control his presence in an Everyday Photo in a way which he can’t in face to face interaction. Oftentimes, it is the chinks in the armour of another that are the most endearing, with weaknesses sometimes exerting as much of an attractive force as strengths. Whilst weaknesses are difficult to hide in face to face interaction, they can be more easily smoothed over in the Everyday Photo. The Everyday Photo can reveal either too much or too little information about another, restricting the way in which a relationship may be formed, pursued and maintained.
The new genre of the Everyday Photo and the way in which it is shared on Facebook not only provides an explanation for why digital cameras are the new lighters at rock concerts but also presents a number of challenges and opportunities. I’m still unsure how comfortable I am with the increasingly demanding presence of the Everyday Photo in my life. But I do know two things. I’m quite happy to leave my camera at home most of the time and, for the sake of current and future relationships, I’m going to leave some of my mysteries to be unravelled rather than plastering them all over Facebook.
“With thanks to Adam Hochman, Jeremy Whitelaw and Anne Palmer for helping to refine some of the ideas in this article through their reflective listening skills”
Cover image by Penmachine on Flickr
Andy, you mention the notion of a digital footprint. We’ve been building a service to help with consolidating this sorta thing called http://www.extendr.com. Maybe it could help, maybe not.
Hmm . . . uncertain about how closely this relates to the Everyday Photo but an interesting service. A filing cabinet-like virtual space for all of one’s online personas both appeals to and terrifies me a little. Thanks for sharing Joseph.