We're ruining our memories
Discussion
They had a couple of minutes on this during this evening's Radio 4 show.
http://www.the.me/study-on-photo-taking-impairment...
What's the view from the learned?
http://www.the.me/study-on-photo-taking-impairment...
What's the view from the learned?
Yes but whilst we may remember fewer objects we remind ourselves when we look at the photos we took.
Google and smartphones have destroyed my memory. Or perhaps it was the massive drinking at uni?
But if I need info I just check the inter web through my smartphone.
If I need to remember something, I type it ino my phone. I don't have to use my memory any more and I guess like an unused muscle it is atrophying.
Google and smartphones have destroyed my memory. Or perhaps it was the massive drinking at uni?
But if I need info I just check the inter web through my smartphone.
If I need to remember something, I type it ino my phone. I don't have to use my memory any more and I guess like an unused muscle it is atrophying.
The internet is the issue. You no longer have to know anything because you can Google it. You no longer have to make arrangements or remember anything because you can call them on the mobile. Everything is transitory.
I used to enjoy reading books and making model boats. One model took 450 hours and 18 months to complete. Guess where that time went since then? Yep, the internet. Mildly entertaining but it leaves no trace. And now I don't have the attention span or patience to do another, which is a pity.
I'm glad there was no internet when I was a student.
I used to enjoy reading books and making model boats. One model took 450 hours and 18 months to complete. Guess where that time went since then? Yep, the internet. Mildly entertaining but it leaves no trace. And now I don't have the attention span or patience to do another, which is a pity.
I'm glad there was no internet when I was a student.
I think too many people are intent on snapping everything.
When I go on holiday I take a small landscape kit with me, and will make an effort to shoot some decent landscapes, occasional sunsets etc. Other than that I carry a little Leica for snaps of which I don't take many at all. In contrast the number of people I see using iPhones and snapping at anything that moves, or doesn't, their cocktails at the bar, their ice cream, the boat we're going out on, the museum, the busker, the pigeons, the church steeple, literally everything, one shot then onto the next. What use can they have for so many snaps? Hammering away like that the chances are they're low quality and won't get printed, nor looked at again.
When I go on holiday I take a small landscape kit with me, and will make an effort to shoot some decent landscapes, occasional sunsets etc. Other than that I carry a little Leica for snaps of which I don't take many at all. In contrast the number of people I see using iPhones and snapping at anything that moves, or doesn't, their cocktails at the bar, their ice cream, the boat we're going out on, the museum, the busker, the pigeons, the church steeple, literally everything, one shot then onto the next. What use can they have for so many snaps? Hammering away like that the chances are they're low quality and won't get printed, nor looked at again.
markmullen said:
I think too many people are intent on snapping everything.
How else will you prove to
I get the impression as well that with some people its just the scattergun approach - they don't actually know how to take a good photo (or what makes a photo good), so they snap away like mad in the hope that some of them turn out ok.
markmullen said:
I think too many people are intent on snapping everything.
When I go on holiday I take a small landscape kit with me, and will make an effort to shoot some decent landscapes, occasional sunsets etc. Other than that I carry a little Leica for snaps of which I don't take many at all. In contrast the number of people I see using iPhones and snapping at anything that moves, or doesn't, their cocktails at the bar, their ice cream, the boat we're going out on, the museum, the busker, the pigeons, the church steeple, literally everything, one shot then onto the next. What use can they have for so many snaps? Hammering away like that the chances are they're low quality and won't get printed, nor looked at again.
My father was keen on landscapes, and took it quite seriously - but when I look back through the slides there they are - lots of landscapes. A nice mountain. A nice loch. A nice hill. But whilst they have some emotional attachment to me because he took them, they are rather sterile. Of far greater interest to me are the few with family and friends, or with the little everyday things that get ignored, or with the background that shows the old bookcase you remembered as a child. These are the things that life is actually made of, the bit that disappears as you get older. Landscapes are fine to hang on the wall but they are not the essence of life.When I go on holiday I take a small landscape kit with me, and will make an effort to shoot some decent landscapes, occasional sunsets etc. Other than that I carry a little Leica for snaps of which I don't take many at all. In contrast the number of people I see using iPhones and snapping at anything that moves, or doesn't, their cocktails at the bar, their ice cream, the boat we're going out on, the museum, the busker, the pigeons, the church steeple, literally everything, one shot then onto the next. What use can they have for so many snaps? Hammering away like that the chances are they're low quality and won't get printed, nor looked at again.
Simpo Two said:
markmullen said:
I think too many people are intent on snapping everything.
When I go on holiday I take a small landscape kit with me, and will make an effort to shoot some decent landscapes, occasional sunsets etc. Other than that I carry a little Leica for snaps of which I don't take many at all. In contrast the number of people I see using iPhones and snapping at anything that moves, or doesn't, their cocktails at the bar, their ice cream, the boat we're going out on, the museum, the busker, the pigeons, the church steeple, literally everything, one shot then onto the next. What use can they have for so many snaps? Hammering away like that the chances are they're low quality and won't get printed, nor looked at again.
My father was keen on landscapes, and took it quite seriously - but when I look back through the slides there they are - lots of landscapes. A nice mountain. A nice loch. A nice hill. But whilst they have some emotional attachment to me because he took them, they are rather sterile. Of far greater interest to me are the few with family and friends, or with the little everyday things that get ignored, or with the background that shows the old bookcase you remembered as a child. These are the things that life is actually made of, the bit that disappears as you get older. Landscapes are fine to hang on the wall but they are not the essence of life.When I go on holiday I take a small landscape kit with me, and will make an effort to shoot some decent landscapes, occasional sunsets etc. Other than that I carry a little Leica for snaps of which I don't take many at all. In contrast the number of people I see using iPhones and snapping at anything that moves, or doesn't, their cocktails at the bar, their ice cream, the boat we're going out on, the museum, the busker, the pigeons, the church steeple, literally everything, one shot then onto the next. What use can they have for so many snaps? Hammering away like that the chances are they're low quality and won't get printed, nor looked at again.
That's not to say that if you spend the whole of a family event with the camera on your face that you won't miss a lot of moments 'live', however. As with everything, moderation is key.
Simpo Two said:
My father was keen on landscapes, and took it quite seriously - but when I look back through the slides there they are - lots of landscapes. A nice mountain. A nice loch. A nice hill. But whilst they have some emotional attachment to me because he took them, they are rather sterile. Of far greater interest to me are the few with family and friends, or with the little everyday things that get ignored, or with the background that shows the old bookcase you remembered as a child. These are the things that life is actually made of, the bit that disappears as you get older. Landscapes are fine to hang on the wall but they are not the essence of life.
But it is what I enjoy, the taking of landscapes, it's what I spend my spare time doing, so whilst on holiday I make time to do it. 
Simpo Two said:
markmullen said:
I think too many people are intent on snapping everything.
When I go on holiday I take a small landscape kit with me, and will make an effort to shoot some decent landscapes, occasional sunsets etc. Other than that I carry a little Leica for snaps of which I don't take many at all. In contrast the number of people I see using iPhones and snapping at anything that moves, or doesn't, their cocktails at the bar, their ice cream, the boat we're going out on, the museum, the busker, the pigeons, the church steeple, literally everything, one shot then onto the next. What use can they have for so many snaps? Hammering away like that the chances are they're low quality and won't get printed, nor looked at again.
My father was keen on landscapes, and took it quite seriously - but when I look back through the slides there they are - lots of landscapes. A nice mountain. A nice loch. A nice hill. But whilst they have some emotional attachment to me because he took them, they are rather sterile. Of far greater interest to me are the few with family and friends, or with the little everyday things that get ignored, or with the background that shows the old bookcase you remembered as a child. These are the things that life is actually made of, the bit that disappears as you get older. Landscapes are fine to hang on the wall but they are not the essence of life.When I go on holiday I take a small landscape kit with me, and will make an effort to shoot some decent landscapes, occasional sunsets etc. Other than that I carry a little Leica for snaps of which I don't take many at all. In contrast the number of people I see using iPhones and snapping at anything that moves, or doesn't, their cocktails at the bar, their ice cream, the boat we're going out on, the museum, the busker, the pigeons, the church steeple, literally everything, one shot then onto the next. What use can they have for so many snaps? Hammering away like that the chances are they're low quality and won't get printed, nor looked at again.
My father was keen on snapping and filming stuff. I have boxes of images, mostly B&W, that he shot, processed and printed. Some are rather good - the ones that ended up hanging up framed on the wall. Others not so much.
I have a couple of boxes of slides taken in the 60s, mostly. Trips to Scotland were popular for them then and an aunt, who also had a tendency to snap away whilst on holiday, would often travel with my parents and take pretty much the same snaps. They are mostly, er, average. At best. They are just snaps of places and a few people in Scotland and elsewhere. But here we are 50 years on and they may be of more interest for the people and the social changes they allow us to measure. Plus the places that have changed over the years, the towns and villages and building and, maybe one or two vistas from before the Vestas.
The ability to look back at times past is, in the main, the big attraction of average snaps from the past. Nostalgia always has a place on 'Local' newspaper web sites and the walls of many pubs seeking to retain the credibility of history as part of their appeal to customers.
As for memory - I think it's unadvisable to assume that we all have the same memory methods and abilities. Memory retention over time, even if successful does not necessarily leave people with an accurate recall of a place, a scene, a face or events. Even those events we refer to as 'vivid' memories. Plus the memory may not be uncovered by instant recall without something prompting the connection. Something like a photo image for example. Or a word, a name, a smell, a taste perhaps.
One aspect of the internet is that there is so much more information thrust at us or readily available through a brief search than there ever has been in the past. One could argue that there is little need for personal memory in the future since all information, old and new, accurate and inaccurate, is available in seconds. That's tricky for the pre-internet generations to find comfortable. The post internet generations probably have no clue what their old folk are concerned about (assuming they have enough memory left to be concerned.)
The benefits and de-benefits could cut both ways.
There is a valid point which (unless I've missed it) hasn't been mentioned, that of taking action photos but missing out on watching the actual action.
This used to happen a lot to me photographing railway subjects, I would spend all the time looking through the camera and miss actually watching the Train go past. It's more of an issue with motor sport, I spent a while photographing Rally Cars in the Dark on last years Roger Albert Clark, I've got a number of decent images but I didn't actually watch many of the cars, just a fleeting glimpse through the viewfinder. In some instances I only realised what the Car was when I checked it on the screen, I then regretted taking the shot because it was crap and I'd practically missed the Car anyway.
It pays sometimes just to put the Camera away and enjoy what you are watching without the distraction.
This used to happen a lot to me photographing railway subjects, I would spend all the time looking through the camera and miss actually watching the Train go past. It's more of an issue with motor sport, I spent a while photographing Rally Cars in the Dark on last years Roger Albert Clark, I've got a number of decent images but I didn't actually watch many of the cars, just a fleeting glimpse through the viewfinder. In some instances I only realised what the Car was when I checked it on the screen, I then regretted taking the shot because it was crap and I'd practically missed the Car anyway.
It pays sometimes just to put the Camera away and enjoy what you are watching without the distraction.
LuS1fer said:
Depends. I find that I snap and miss both the action and the photo....
I found myself thinking about this study a lot of the last few days and I ended up writing an article on it today. I don't know about anyone else, but I have seen a lot of debate between photographers on various sites about it. It's such a non-issue in so many circumstances.
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