A while back I was reading an on-line discussion about who was the world's most photographed person. The usual suspects were at the top of the list: film stars (Marilyn Monroe?), rock stars (David Bowie?), politicians and – way above the rest – Princess Diana. Everyone had a different take on this, but all the likely candidates were inevitably famous people who drew large audiences. No real surprise there. I didn't really give it too much thought at the time, but I'm beginning to think that there's another take on this: Are we the most photographed generation ever?
I suspect we are, even if we forget about the reams of CCTV footage that pick us up wherever we go. The big difference is the advent of the digital camera. Whereas I used to maybe run a film of 36 shots off, take it it to be developed, pay a fortune and buy another film, I now snap away regardless of cost (because there isn't a cost).
The other evening I checked my hard-drive for space. I only have 20GB and had never used much above half that. But I'm gradually running out of space. The reason? Photographs.
It started when I bought a low price digital camera back at the end of May (an Olympus C370 at a mere £99). I got it to take a few pix of the foxes that frequent the garden, but given that there's no cost for printing I just snapped away without a thought. So somehow – don't ask me how – I've ended up with over 1800 photos of foxes on my computer (and that's just counting fox photos). And that amount to 2.49GB. OK, I can save the photos to CD. I could even delete the unsuccessful shots (but I won't). The real point is that I've been taking photos on and off for the best part of 4 decades and I reckon I've taken more in the past two months than in all the previous years put together. And it's all down to the digital format.
Assuming I'm a long way from being unique I reckon that as a generation we are going to see more images, create more images and be in more images than any previous generation on earth. Our whole lives are going to be documented in a way previously unthinkable. Once it was only the very rich or important who had portraits painted. Then art moved to depicting the more common place. Then photography brought the image to the masses. Now we're on the edge of a new revolution and the image bank is overflowing. The boundary between public and private is ever diminishing as a result. I don't mean to make any political point on this, more a philosophical reflection. The change has happened and we are only at the edge of discovering what it will mean for our understanding of reality and truth.
Did it happen? Where's the photo. Is it fake?
After all, we all know the camera never lies.
anonymous
31 May 2011Rob writes:
I'm afraid the world is becoming a true-life panopticon, and the trend shows no sign of leveling off. My child is less than a week old and already there is at least 100 photos of her and a fair bit of high-def video. I'm only in my mid-30s and I am honestly not sure I have that many photos of my entire childhood put together, and certainly no video. The kids of today will regard the ubiquity of cameras as normal, and later, computer-based systems "understanding" and analyzing and tracking every photo in huge databases, with place recognition and face recognition … that is already happening. Date/time is already embedded in images and the leading-edge consumer cameras are already embedding GPS and camera orientation information. Computer systems will soon know where you go, who you are with, at what times – every detail analyzed. Once we have more sophisticated artificial algorithms, they could be applied to mining this data on a level and for applications that are difficult to imagine right now. The implications could potentially be dire, or turn out to be mostly neutral.
Words
31 May 2011Nicely put… maybe time to step off the grid.