Buying a cell phone now is no longer about its ability to make and receive calls. The customer looks for various other attributes, the most important one being its camera. Phone manufacturers smartly sell the instrument based on the number of pixels the camera has, even though that does not necessarily make the output any better or worse, unless one wants to blow up the photograph. Yet, the customer wants the camera to not just take good pictures but also to be able to expound on all its features.
Some cameras are now being sold as ideal for “selfies”. Think about how strange that sounds. Cameras were always for taking photographs of other people, or landscapes, or buildings. The vast majority of cameras today – and certainly almost all phone cameras – are now used to take photographs of the photographer. How does one explain it — vanity? Or just another symbol of the ‘Me’ Generation?
How far we are ready to take pictures of ourselves became so apparent earlier this week when photographs surfaced of passengers smiling next to the Egyptian hijacker who had strapped explosives round his waist. Apparently this claim was false, but the crew did well to believe him; it is better to be safe than sorry. It all ended well, because the hijacker only wanted to talk to his ex-wife in Cyprus. He turned out to be someone with a past criminal record and was described as mentally unsound. “He is not a terrorist, just an idiot” said one Egyptian minister.
Be that as it may, what he became, for that one short moment, is notorious, and therefore newsworthy. And out came the phone cameras. A British passenger, beaming happily, posed with the bemused hijacker, and the selfie went viral. Another one surfaced, with a crew member looking poised but equally happy. Both will undoubtedly have stories to tell their children and grandchildren and will have the photo as proof.
While these could be classified as “silly, if not downright stupid”, the obsession with selfies can have real, dangerous consequences. Recently, a college student fell into the sea while taking a selfie in Bandra Bandstand. In February a young boy was killed when he tried to take a selfie in the backdrop of an oncoming train. India is now being called the selfie-death capital of the world! The Mumbai police have identified 16 no selfie zones in the city, because they are dangerous. Will that stop adventurous (or foolish) people from taking selfies? One doubts it.
No doubt psychologists and social scientists are at this very moment working on theses and studies to figure out why we are all so obsessed with photographing ourselves. The cheap and easy availability of technology is of course a factor, but even so, why is the lens being directed at ourselves, rather than at something else. Film stars and celebrities say that no one asks for their autographs any more – it is always a selfie, which is easier to share on social media platforms and serves as proof of someone having met a famous person. It can invoke admiration and envy, both vital components to anyone wanting to show off. Selfies are also important to prove one has travelled (selfie with the Eiffel Tower!) and that one is in interesting situations.
But let’s leave aside the narcissistic element of the selfie aside. Let’s look at the actual photograph. What is the value of all these photographs? In an earlier era, the photos taken of the family or during important events like a wedding, found their way into the family album, which then got relegated to a dusty corner of the cupboard, to be opened only once in a few years. What will happen to digital photos?
A professional photographer Mike Yost has an answer. He says the most photographed generation of all time will have nothing to show for it in a few years. In a blogpost, he has said, “The sad part is that few of these photographs will survive beyond a year. To many people, a “picture” is only good for the moment. Moms and Dads want to snap every little movement of that new baby. Grandma wants to see each one of those, too. When you want to show off the new puppy, you pull out the phone. And in a week, none of them have any real meaning and might even get “deleted” just to make room for more pictures that have little meaning as well inside of a couple of weeks.
So what will become of all the pictures that are being taken today? Here is the reason that 99% of the photographs being taken today are soon going to be totally gone – digital images are no longer important enough to most people to actually keep them in printed form!”
It makes sense, when you think of it. After we have taken the photo, how many of us bother to store it on other platforms and then get the best ones printed? The taking of the photo is a thrill of the moment which does not exist later and certainly not in the long run. Indeed, many of the digital photos stored on the computer will never be seen again (assuming they don’t get corrupted or wiped out when the computer crashes.) The selfie, like much else in these times, is instant gratification and nothing else after. The man who got himself photographed with the hijacker got his few seconds of fame—who will remember him after a week?
