The taking of photographs

I’ve always taken lots of photos both with cameras and my phone . I take them for the memories and rarely post on social media.
Plus once a year I have a blitz on my phone and upload them to a site like snap fish and order prints which then go into an album with dates, places and people . I love looking at photos and luckily my mother took loads over the years and all in albums .

But, as I said before, they and their activity were not doing any harm so...... Shrugtastic.

Selfie-taking is a different matter from taking shots of places of interest that one visits.

Last year DH and I had a trip to Iona and, on one of the days, did a boat trip to Staffa. We both took photos on and of Staffa and its surroundings. We both noticed that two ladies who were on the same boat trip seemed more concerned with taking selfies and thought this odd.

Aveline

I remember how sad my DSiL was when remembering walking down the aisle after he and my DD were married. The cameraperson taking the (apparently essential DVD) told them to look straight at the camera not the friends and families smiling and waving at the newly married couple. He regrets it. So sad really.

My DH has sometimes been the extra photographer at the weddings of children of old friends. There would be the wedding photographer and my DH snapped anything of interest. He would send the best to the newly married couple sometime later.

My understanding is that often the wedding photographers come in pairs. One for the formal pix and one for the rest.

In our 20s my DH worked as a photographer. During our life together he has taken 1000s of pictures, most of which are rejected.

We have 17 ringbinders of photos which he has printed over the years. one of these contains our happy snaps. Us, friends, our pets and our homes. Memory fades over time and these files are good as aide memoires. In one or two of them he is pulling a face because it took me a long time to get him into focus. They also remind me that I didn't look too bad and he was very handsome when we were young.

I agree about social media. When my DH was at Ephesus a few years he encountered various other tourists walking around the site taking selfies but not photos of the actual ruins.

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

I think it is a shame that getting a photo for social media ....

Taking lots of photos is fine in my book.

But your last paragraph has merit.
When the aim becomes to post a picture telling the story you would like others to see about your life and its experiences, you are distancing your self from that very experience.
Not being 'in the moment', or dis engaging from our lives is so easy to do nowadays.

No you arnt being a grumpy woman, just noticing how we live now.

I agree, they're not totally concentrating on enjoying the event.
Also I used to love going to collect the photos after a holiday, and putting them in an album.

I am more worried about the number of photos the family take. If you think we took 100 photos per year I'd say now they take 1,000 per year. Where are they all and will anyone ever see them? Amongst them may be some real gems but they may be lost amongst all the others. In 20 years time will the grandchildren be able to find anything or will they just flick through them hardly glancing at them? There will be 20,000 photos in 20 years which hardly bears thinking about. The other worry is that they are usually stored on the cloud, and will the family be able to access them if anything happens to the account holder?

I remember how sad my DSiL was when remembering walking down the aisle after he and my DD were married. The cameraperson taking the (apparently essential DVD) told them to look straight at the camera not the friends and families smiling and waving at the newly married couple. He regrets it. So sad really.

It is possible to film an event whilst watching it as is clearly defined in the OP photo. People are clearly holding their phones to film the fireworks during the New Year celebrations whilst looking beyond the phone to watch first hand. Obviously, they wanted to share the experience with others who couldn't attend and enjoy watching it themselves afterwards.
As for standing in the freezing cold to watch anyone go to church is just plain daft.

I get what you mean, Daddima. I was once lucky enough to go on a short whale-watching trip while doing the autumn leaves tour in America. There I was, camera poised to take the shots. But then I saw the whales!

"Take a photo, take a photo" my DH pleaded. But I couldn't waste a second of watching those whales with my own eyes. I've never regretted not taking (what probably would have been awful) photos.

Why does it matter? It does no harm.