11/28/12 – Unwatchable

Part and parcel of immersing yourself in the hobby of photography is coming to terms with an often embarrassing fascination with people watching.  You have to be on the ball if you want to capture a unique moment in time.  A whole lot of patience helps too.

So when I see people running from place to place snapping off pictures without first taking a few moments to survey the landscape and absorb the moment, it just strikes me as sad.  Why bother to take such pictures when you’d be better served by an image search on the web.  There’s only two reasons that come to mind: You enjoy inflicting the pain of looking at your photo albums on friend and family; or, you place more value on the binary of the “been there” philosophy than you do on the varied experience that comes from “done that”.

But it gets even worse when people rush through a video shot as if they were taking it while riding a merry-go-round; it’s unwatchable and likely to induce epileptic seizures in those so afflicted.  My advice is to put the camera down, even if just for a short while, and only spend time taking pictures of the truly memorable stuff.