Snapshot – © John Neel
What happened to the thing we used to call the snapshot?
There was a time when most people took what were considered snapshots. Those images were about the importance of subjects, places, and events. They were used as more of a remembrance than anything else. There purpose was to allow us to record the moments we wanted to look back on.
The camera was usually only brought out for recording the big things such as holidays, birthdays, a visit to the grandparents or maybe to take on a trip or vacation. Cameras were not as convenient to carry or use as they are today. Many cameras stayed in a drawer strapped in a case until needed or someone remembered to take it along.
Back then, instant gratification with a camera was not possible. Film had to be processed and printed and it took some time to get the images back from the photo store or the drugstore. Most everyone had patience in those days along with something called anticipation.
For the most part, the images people made were kept in albums and shoeboxes. The images were private, shown at family gatherings and sometimes shared with very close friends. They were snapshots that were taken of the important people and places in their personal lives.
What you might find in a box of snaps was always a surprise. One of the things that most people did was write directly on the prints themselves. They actually used handwriting with pencils and pens. The idea was to write down the dates and tell a bit of what was in the picture. The beauty of this is in the handwriting and the personal messages that were records of people and their events. Not too many people these days produce images that are as personal as that. Imagine seeing the personal handwriting on the image of someone you loved or knew. Not only do you get to experience the image taken by someone, but his or her hand written message is there as well. One must realize that the person who took or the person in the image actually touched the photograph. Not sure if any of the new technology can share as warmly as that.
Today, nobody seems to write much of anything by hand. Everything is done on a keypad in the coldness of Courier or Arial, with the sameness of everything else that sends electronically. Evolution of the human hand from this point on will probably not be altered by the pen or the pencil. That will be the cause of the keyboard.
The images people took were once used as a way to reflect on ones life, the past, family, babies, children, birthdays, travel, the new car and the home. Most people kept their images private. For the most part, others would probably never have been interested in seeing the everyday activities that were recorded of most people’s lives. They had their own versions in their own shoeboxes, which were meant to share with those close to what was imaged.
Over the years, the images inside a shoebox or in the albums changed from rectangular to square and back again to rectangular. This was in part due to the changes in camera formats lover time. The 35-mm camera produced rectangular images while many box style cameras and Instamatic cameras were square. Some images had white borders and some were cut with a deckled edge. In the 60’s, the border was eliminated and the image bled off the edge. Early images from the 1950’s or before were almost always black and white. Color didn’t really start to show up until the late fifties to early 60’s. My father shot a lot of color slides. The old slide projector and the shoebox were usually stored side-by-side in the same place. Sometimes both prints and slides existed in the same box. Albums were placed on the coffee table or on a shelf in the living room.
Today, everyone is a photographer of sorts. We all have cameras of some kind that have immediate capabilities for seeing and sharing almost everything we do.
Today, the idea is to share your images with others using the web as a way to share not only the past, but also the present. One might imagine that the past is not as important as the present. We seem to share the things we are doing rather than the things we have done. Images are shared as fast as they are created. It seems as if everything now has to be done as quickly as possible. Yesterday’s images are no longer relevant. We want to know what is happening now. We share things as we do them. And as a result, the image stream is a constant now.
That means, that we are subject to see almost anything and everything that another person decides to share. What was once private, is now in the public eye or at least in the eyes of those with whom one shares. People take pictures of their lives as they live them. An image of this morning’s breakfast and the glass of beer we are having for lunch are a few of the things one might share. Compared to the snapshots taken in the pre-computerized world, we have become much less private in more ways than we even know.
The amount of imagery that we send this way is beyond anyone’s imagination. The images taken and shared on the web are probably in the billions each and every day. It is hard to realize or even appreciate the effects of such a bombardment.
Perhaps most of those images are of little to no use to anyone other than those who might actually care. For most of us, they are probably irrelevant. In part because they are like the sparks from a rocket in that they simply create a fleeting hint of what your life might be like to the few who seem interested. In many ways, the net presents these images as if they are a slow moving film. Each image becomes a frame of a movie that streams endlessly, stacking from day to day and moment to moment in an ever-moving river of look at this, look at that and look at me on everyone’s page. Like the water under a bridge, what is past is past. We ready ourselves for the next salvo.
The biggest problem I see for all this deluge is that we have become inundated to the point that it makes it much harder for the best images to come to the surface long enough to make a difference. There are I believe great images made by great image-makers that have the potential to change how we function as a people.
I believe that they are the images that could have a deeper impact on all our lives. They are the images, which can make us think about our shared lives as human beings and as a life form on this great planet. There are, I believe images that would be useful to us all if we knew what to look for, if we realized that what they offered, and if we had some way to keep them at the top of the stream. They are the images made by those who have something to express, which goes beyond the bounds of family and friends. If only we can find them in the maze of all the others.
I suppose that there is both good and bad things that are possible from this chaos. It certainly eats away at time. For certain, it takes a lot of time from living our lives in the real world.
In the long run, what is the value of this newer way of sharing our images? How personal is it? How does it compare to what happened in the days of snapshots? Is there a real difference? Does any of this really matter? Does the past mean anything? What about the present? Will it matter tomorrow?
I wonder if at least some of all this is a way to escape the realities of what real life seems to be for many. It is hard to tell when everyone is perpetually staring at the screen of some device to see what is at the other end.
A good thing might be that with the exception of where we might live and the privileges we might have, one might see that our lives are not so different from most.
Perhaps, in the future, anthropologists will sift through it all and it will give them an indication of what seems to have been important to us. I would imagine that calculating the overall effect from this chaotic abundance of seemingly important imagery is that we were all incredibly confused.
One thing is for certain – life is passing before our eyes.
You can read about my book “Rethinking Digital Photography” here. Please have a look at some of my other posts here.
NOTICE of Copyright: THIS POSTING AS WELL AS ALL PHOTOGRAPHS, GALLERY IMAGES, AND ILLUSTRATIONS ARE COPYRIGHT © JOHN NEEL AND ARE NOT TO BE USED FOR ANY PURPOSE WITHOUT WRITTEN CONSENT FROM THE WRITER, THE PHOTOGRAPHER AND/OR lensgarden.com. THE IDEAS EXPRESSED ARE THE PROPERTY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER AND THE AUTHOR.
