The taking of photographs

Baggs

Is "total concentration" necessary to watch fireworks at a distance?

Difficult question Baggs. 🤔

I can't imagine why anyone would want to film fireworks at all. They all look the same on film. It's only when you see them live they have any impact.

At my DGC school concert we were told not to take photos and that there would be an official video.
I was relieved. Years ago, when my DC were performing, other parents would be holding up video cameras which was distracting.

So yes I agree, I prefer to enjoy the experience but I guess the digital age is here to stay.

You mention the digital age.
I spend a happy hour or two, going through photos on my phone, which I have rejected for one reason or another, and I like to crop and enlarge, or flip. Just experiment with really.
I couldnt have done that quite so easily years ago.
It is surprising what the results are.
Some I print off and put up at home - not on fb, but could do, if I thought someone would find it interesting!

I find a lot of other people's behaviour 'bewildering', that is I don't understand it or think it daft. I also think a lot of what people (including me) do is potentially 'pointless'. Maybe that's just life. I expect a lot of important discoveries have been made by apparently pointless activities – fiddling about with bits of fur and leather and grasses and rushes and bones, for example, and discovering knitting, weaving, papyrus, carving, sewing, etc, etc, etc.

Playing, faffing about, trying new things (such as filming with a computer that fits in your pocket) is what learning is all about.

It may be true that people who film a concert, say, rather than immersing themselves in it by not filming, are having a better experience, but I doubt this has been proved.

Meant to say those who aren't filming are being supposed to be having the better experience.

My eldest daughter often makes me a photobook, which I really value as she and her family live in NZ. My eldest son and youngest daughter take the trouble to get a lot of photographs printed, framed and displayed at their homes - and often gift me photographs, which again are much appreciated. At Christmas my youngest son finally got on board and also gifted me a lovely framed photo of his son.

We have various family WhatsApp groups and I love seeing incidental photos of their activities, but they’re not overly ‘snap happy’.

I don't mind people taking photos or videos as long as it doesn't spoil anyone else's enjoyment. Trying to watch a live show or similar with loads of small screens lit up in front of me, completely distracts me from the performance. I find it very selfish.

If my late husband had not taken photos of our lives together and of the countries we visited, I would not now have albums full of wonderful memories. The tears that I have shed looking through those photo albums from the 1960's when we first met, first using my dad's Brownie 127 camera, then buying my husband a good quality second hand camera for his 21st birthday). Wherever we went he had that camera with him and now it is 2024, I still have his camera, well worn through daily use. I thank god for all those photos and thank him from the bottom of my heart for leaving me with wonderful memories now shown in black and white and colour.

DS1 takes lots of photos, but only connected with the two loves of his life - food and his wife. When he comes here he’ll often put a memory stick into my tv and I have a film show - meals and DIL - wherever they’ve been. I love it. Mine are largely of plants. (DXH wouldn’t let me use either his camera or his drill but now I have my own drill and my mobile phone the world’s my oyster.)

What I find sad nowadays is that in years to come people won't have albums to reminisce over (or packets of photographs in my case !!). Who actually prints photos from their phone? I think the non stop taking of photos on phones is tedious and pointless. We went whale watching in Iceland a few years ago and the number of people using their phones to try and take photos of humpback whales was sad.

On the topic of huge collections of photos, I have made small photobooks of certain people and memorable events. They are different from the Albums with miscellaneous topics year by year. Someone on here suggested one for my mother's 100th birthday which I now treasure and enjoyed choosing items for it while careful to avoid deceased family and friends.

Years ago, before mobile phones with cameras, a family member pushed to the small space round the font to take photos of a baby's christening. It was not his baby. I thought at the time it was strange and rude, and felt it spoilt the moment of a religious ceremony.

I have been to concerts where many people are filming and effectively missing the live experience. When I was in the Louvre trying to see a special painting that I had always wanted to see in reality, I found myself behind a large group of phones. All I could see was a sea of light and a solid mass of people taking photographs. What on earth is it all about!

The storage of photos and other material online means that lots of them will be lost forever when someone dies. While I love looking at old black and white photos of family and my home town this will not be so easy in the future. I have made sure that I can safely pass on passwords, pin numbers etc to my family when I go.

I don’t mind what others do with their “ devices” but if I’m in the moment I prefer to watch because my phones’ camera and my skills on it aren’t that good compared to others. So always hope someone else captures it.
It kind of breaks the spell to be fishing the phone out and fumbling with the various settings😙 imo.
Regarding the number of photos taken since it all went digital I confess that I really enjoy people unearthing snaps I haven’t seen before from family and friends. It brings back memories in an instant and sometimes I can’t believe how grandkids have grown and how time does really fly🥹

Not sure what you mean about ‘agreeing with Prince Andrew’ but seriously you may need to have a word with yourself if you can agree anything with that particular man . I do however agree about enjoying the moment / I think most people do a mix of both ..

It is the ‘selfie lip puckering’ generation I don’t understand !
Yes take photos, I should know I have a trunk full (not in albums) but what is the selfie thing?
Just don’t get it

I’ve always always take tons of photos everywhere and will continue to do so.

Have two cameras and my phone.

Later I whittle them down picking out the best and sometimes use the free photo book service to have hard copies all contained together. It already gives me joy to look at them and I think about how nice it’ll be to look in many many years time (hopefully)

I was travelling on a vaporetto in Venice sitting beside a younger woman tourist. She was viewing the photos she had taken in the city. Every one was a selfie of her in front of an iconic Venetian building or view.
However, in all the pics, her face in the foreground almost obscured the scene. The pics could have been taken anywhere in the world!

Not only did I not have a camera when my children were very little but there was no one to take any photos of us together when I did get one🙁I’m sure I was not alone in that though.

It’s so annoying, too. especially at concerts. Struggling to see because people are holding their phones aloft.

I remember in a boat off Vancouver Island I was so busy trying to capture a photo of the whales, I never really saw them!!

It can be very annoying, last year in the Orangerie in Paris 2 women (easily my age) were so busy taking photos and blocking other people’s access that I don’t think they appreciated the beauty of the paintings, most people also sit on the benches in the middle to soak up the ambience but not these two they went into another smaller room and did it again! Doesn’t happen so much in London fortunately as most galleries have a no photos policy

I love looking through my photos, reliving memories. I make small photobooks of major holidays and family events, I usually have some prints printed using one of the ‘free’ printing sites and they go up in the kitchen and get changed regularly as the grandchildren grow and change so quickly. Then every November I sort through all the photos on my phone and make a yearbook, leaving a couple of pages free for Christmas photos. When that is completed and delivered back to me it is then added to all the others, going back years, on my bookshelf, to be brought out whenever anyone asks..’ where were we when?……or who was with us at?…… or when did we?…….or whenever I just want a session reminiscing over times past.