Thanks to Rupali for indirectly reminding me to write something. In today’s post she talked about experiencing the Instagram effect – in her post she mentioned a line-up forming behind her as she took a photo.
It reminded me of the two times I saw Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night”
By Vincent van Gogh – Google Arts & Culture — bgEuwDxel93-Pg, Public Domain, Link
It’s definitely one of the more famous artworks. It’s famous for a good reason too. It’s absolutely gorgeous and seeing it in person is truly different. In 1996 Sage and I went to the MoMA and saw it and were literally the only two people there. It was just us 2 feet away from the artwork. I was amazed by the fact that it didn’t just look like the photos I’d seen, it had texture and depth. Sage was so moved she started crying. Seeing it is definitely an experience.
Flash forward a little over 20 years and Daegan and I are in the MoMA again having a fantastic day exploring and we come around a corner to find a room absolutely packed with people. We can only get to within 30-40 feet at best. Through the crowds of people taking photos on their phones we caught a tiny glimpse of the painting. Nobody was looking at the painting itself – just their screens. The same screens they could have seen a photo on at any time – and the same one that removes all of the extra detail that seeing it in person gives you. That same afternoon Daegan did an abstract interpretation. That original was lost over the years but I loved it so much he recently made me a re-creation.
As I’ve been streamlining my digital life I’ve been thinking about my relationship with photos and video and the reasons I take and share them. They’ve changed a bit over the years from when we had as few as 12 images on a roll of film and had to conserve them.
I realize I have a few reasons I take photos and understanding that is helping me massively reduce my “digital clutter” because I no longer am saving everything permanently as I was before and my reasons for taking it dictate how long I save it.
At the bottom of the list are the throwaways: Capturing something to add to a shopping list or find a specific item at the store. These go as soon as I’m done with them. No reason to save that.
The next category up in terms of retention is probably one of the biggest. It’s the “Look at this” category. This might be something funny – a store with a strange name, an odd menu item, something yummy I’m eating (or cooked). These are most often shared with family though a few make it to Instagram. These also are not saved. They were interesting in the moment but not memories I’ll want to look back on.
I do take the occasional photo of things that traditionally people take photos of, landmarks and tourist sites. I’ve mostly stopped taking these, though. If there’s nobody I know in them I don’t need a photo to remind me of the experience. Doubtless on Instagram I can find hundreds of photos to remind me what the Empire State Building looked like. I might even find one taken the same day as I was there.
I do like taking pictures of moments that seem particularly beautiful – I see a reason to save the ephemeral – like this one from a recent morning bike ride. This one isn’t going to happen again. I may go back to the location but the beautiful moment is to be saved.
Lately I only save photos from that category and this next one which is related: Moments from experiences. In reality, unless I’m sharing something online and need an illustration, these are the only photos I ever just look back at for the sake of looking. Baby photos, photos of our life in the yurt or my bike trips with Daegan. I will want to relive these moments so I save them. And all the better to make my collection meaningful and not have to wade through all of the other category photos to get to them. (A great example of why not to do this is the number of photos of receipts and extra photos taken to make sure I got a shot like the one above which my older photo archives are filled with)
What is your photo clicking and archiving strategy like these days? What do you do with them after you take them?
I’ll end with an update for yesterday’s post. As planned, I scheduled all my rides for the next week: Monday through Saturday: Around 20-25 km rides before work and a longer ~40 km ride planned for Saturday. The commitment is to do them unless it’s actually dangerous (e.g. lightning or ice storms). And hey, I even got out for a short ride yesterday though when I went to fetch my bike from the shop. I did cut a little of the trip out when squalls with rain, lightning and high winds were on the way. Fortunately I could take my bike on the subway so it was easy to get within a kilometre or so of home. I was able to avoid the worst of the storm but I still did get wet on that last stretch.
I’ll try to keep you posted with more videos throughout the week.
Wonderful illustration of the changing times.