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There must be a balance. Recently I met some people that were constantly filming and taking pictures of everything. It was ridiculous IMO, for the same reasons

There must be a balance. Recently I met some people that were constantly filming and taking pictures of everything. It was ridiculous IMO, for the same reasons OP mentions. This is not new. For me, it began with the rise of the smartphone. So I made it a point not to waste my time photographing things. 10 years later, I regret having essentially no pictures of anything. In particular, no "good" or "frameable" pictures (blurry pictures from funny angles don't count...). Especially from important moments. Yes, I was there living the moment. But with a picture, I could relive it for a bit. It's not hard to find the balance, though, I guess. You don't have to constantly be filming everything. Maybe just get the group together for one picture at the end of the event and that's it. Good enough. That's what'll I try from now on at least. Report back in 10 years...

andrehacker 1y ago
When I was young and easily swayed, I took life advice from a well-known Dutch comedian (Youp van 't Hek) who loved to mock tourists taking those cringe “holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa” photos. The message was clear: tourist photos were tacky, and besides, you could always find a better photo in the gift shop anyway. So for years, I smugly avoided taking photos—too cool for clichés. It only hit me much later that I wasn’t missing out on better shots of monuments… I was missing pictures of the people I was with. Family and friends looking younger, sometimes happier, and—how shall I put it—sometimes still alive.
- memhole 1y ago
  On a backpacking trip, a guy and I were hiking together for a moment. I was snapping photos of the landscape and he started to chastise me for it. He made the same point. It’s about the people you’re with. Eventually, all the photos blur together. He’s not wrong. I’ve got tons of pictures of the outdoors. Not that they aren’t beautiful. Pressed, I mostly couldn’t tell one from the other.
  - XorNot 1y ago
    Conversely having high res camera phones is magical when you have children. They really do grow up so fast.
    - riffraff 1y ago
      From the other side, having good pictures of your parents (ideally with your kids) is a good idea. They also go away faster than you expect.
  - Gigachad 1y ago
    I kind of do agree about photos of landscapes. There's nothing that really ties me to those photos. Tend to stick to photographing people and particularly interesting things rather than just a good view of some hills.
  - kmoser 1y ago
    He's not wrong...unless you're planning to use that landscape photo in a way that will give you some sort of benefit in the future (emotional, financial, etc.). It's easy (an often correct) to assume that most such photos will never be seen again, or maybe scrolled by quickly at best, but the fact is one doesn't know the motivation of the photographer, nor how they might change their motivation in the future to actually make use of that photo.
  - 1659447091 1y ago
    One of my main reason for using Strava* is for keeping context with my travel photos. Even if it's just walks around a city center, I have a thing for photographing street art, and uploading the different photos to my walks and it places them at their locations on the recorded path/map of the walk (or hike) to be revisited/replayed when feeling nostalgic. It also helps to be more discerning about what photos to keep (do I really need another wide landscape shot?) But once the "worthy" photos of my walk/hike are added, I remove the others from my phone and make the recorded activity private for me to enjoy. The context + notes with the photos in one place makes it all mean so much more when I revisit them. I completely ignore all social bits of the app, but this might appeal to some since you can share/fork an activity to the accounts of people that where with you. *I don't work for them, but been using it over a decade now
- FredPret 1y ago
  Being too cool for school really steals a lot of joy from the people who subscribe to that idea. I was a tourist at Pisa not long ago and we really unironically enjoyed "leaning" into our roles as tourists, and now we have fun pictures.
- marticode 1y ago
  I had and followed that advice but in a slightly different delivery: "take photos of peoples, not things".
  - andrehacker 1y ago
    Yes, I ended up exactly there... 20 years later.
  - zirgs 1y ago
    We are no longer in the film era. You won't run out of storage. So I take pictures of both.
- __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
  I have a friend who refuses to take pictures without people in them. It seemed dumb at first but after several years of pictures piling up I can see he had a pretty good point.
  - riffraff 1y ago
    This is old advice, I remember it being framed as "if I wanted a picture of a monument I'd buy a postcard", and postcards basically no longer exist. It made some sense to take pictures of panoramas or art when you could show something to people that could not see it otherwise, but in this era it makes no sense (unless you enjoy photography as a hobby). A goofy picture of you kissing some old bronze statue? Dumb, but yours.
    - JKCalhoun 1y ago
      It’s not just “making it your own”. I took the girls all around the US, around the world even as they were growing up. I had grown up in a “camera family” so always had one on trips as a parent too. Now, with two decades behind me, the photos of my young daughters, wife are the vacation photos I return to. Oldest daughter is wearing a kimono sipping tea at some place in the mountains of Japan… Two youngest are chasing each other on the beach of some island in Hawaii…
      - brabel 1y ago
        I suspect those photos would have been as precious to you if they were taken in your backyard.
        JKCalhoun 1y ago
        You’re right. And I have those too. I was responding to the camera + vacation specifically though.
    - card_zero 1y ago
      Turns out that the things I wish I'd taken photos of were: bookshelves (with titles visible), crappy old computers and things on the screen, posters I used to have on the wall, my everyday clothes, streets with parked cars, the inside of an art supply store. These are not achievements, or unusual places, or humans. The things I'd like to see are stores of subtle cultural information than gets lost because it seems unimportant, and then a couple of decades later I want to look at all the details of it again but I can't. What was that car I used to be slightly interested by every time I walked past it? What range of items used to be for sale? What books did I have? What was actually on that poster that got torn and thrown out and now it's impossible to find another? Instead of answers, I have holiday snaps and pictures of humans.
- _glass 1y ago
  I missed out so much. When I was a college student, I rejected photos, as digital cameras where everywhere, and I was a snob, in my high school times taking analog camera photo. I read a lot of books about Zen, living in the moment, but now I regret this. The view photos I have I cherish as very dear memories.
  - j45 1y ago
    Taking photos and videos for yourself or family is very different than for public posting.
  - kccqzy 1y ago
    When modern smartphones first came out, I rejected them as a snob too. I continued to believe a dumb phone plus a dedicated camera was a better choice. But of course I often forget to bring the better camera out and I missed out on so much too. There's a reason people say the best camera is the camera you have with you.
- assimpleaspossi 1y ago
  I've started more traveling the world the past two years. The pictures I review when I get back didn't seem as interesting as those with my wife in the scene. Even a crowded street scene with multicolored houses was just OK except the one with my wife looking at a fruit stand. From now on, I will include my travel companions whenever I can.
- lupusreal 1y ago
  I generally have disdain for picture taking on vacations, but leaning on the tower is definitely one I would make an exception for. Sure it's tacky and unoriginal, but that's what makes it mandatory!
enthdegree 1y ago
I like seeing pictures taken by my friends. I like discussing those pictures with them. Conversely I also like creating and curating my own pictures to share with like-minded friends. It is prosocial all around. The article is appalling. To me it more effectively conveys his character than his ideas. Maybe for some people it really is hard to find a balance.
socalgal2 1y ago
I think I’m living in the moment. I still take 50-100 pictures on a day trip to a new place. I don’t feel like that means I don’t enjoy the moment. took a ski lift up a mountain, too maybe 3 pics up and 3 down. 20-30 seconds total of a 5-10 minute experience If I was to guess what might take me out is if I was addicted to instantly posting them, watching the likes and comments flow in, and viewing my friends posts, at the same moment. I take the pictures and then a day or two later I post 5-8 of the best, if I thought this particular experience was worth sharing. The point being I’m not thinking about posting and likes during the experience. My time spent on photos is < 1%
- -__---____-ZXyw 1y ago
  Have you ever gone on a day trip with no camera of any kind?
  - socalgal2 1y ago
    Yes, I was an adult before digital cameras were a thing. I have what feels like zero pictures of my life before about 1996. Comparing the two I will gladly take having a camera over not having a camera.
    - codingdave 1y ago
      This is one of the quieter yet transformative changes I've seen tech bring to life - digital cameras removed the cost and hassle of film. Photography before the mid 90s was about deliberate choices of whether a shot was worth the actual cost of the film as well as being one of a couple dozen shots available to you without having to change film rolls. But now, whipping out 50-100 photos while out for the day is quick, easy, and almost free. Consumption of the photos changed as well, but I'm going to let the idea of negatives, prints, and literal slide shows wait for another day. The point is that photography today is not the same as photography in the prior century.
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  I travel still (in a hotel in Obon, Scotland right now) and do take photos. I take a lot less than I used to. I do try to take in the moment now.
_heimdall 1y ago
At least for my father in law, the habit of recording everything started when personal camcorders were first release. We have countless tape of completely random day to day life when my wife was little. There are obviously tapes of more important or memorable moments too, but he just always had a camcorder rolling.
- esafak 1y ago
  If it is not too personal, I suggest uploading it to Youtube as a public record of the past.
- gopher_space 1y ago
  The super 8's of my ex's childhood were magical.
Spooky23 1y ago
My son and I went to Rome, and the ridiculous behaviors from people getting their must have shots is ridiculous. My favorite shots are selfies… one with the two of us on the tarmac in front of the plane on arrival, the other on a random street. I lost my wife to cancer, and regret that pre-kid, we took very few pictures relatively speaking, and I cherish the ones I have.
- ivape 1y ago
  When you watch those episodes of Maury where they have a father-less baby up on stage, and they are trying to figure who the daddy is, you have to contend with the fact that there's an entire audience in-person and at-home that are just taking part in the sheer entertainment of what will ultimately be that child's most embarrassing and deep sorrow in life. Not only that, but we film the spectacle. This was a hit show for decades and commonly accepted to be hilarious, especially those situations. At no point in those decades did society stand back and examine just how heinous it is. I suspect this is true for large scale exhibitionism and voyeurism (which is what this is, you are either a subject or the voyeur in these pictures, and if you are both, then you are narcissist). It's been going on for decades and it's heinous. The sheer scale of it will not allow our society to stand back and examine it. I consider all these things part of our current public crucifixions. And like litter, the harmless gum wrappers (the selfies, the "look where I am" photos, etc) have accumulated into a pure garbage world. That's the power of accumulation, and now we all live in Garbage Land. Our society is nasty and has been for as long as we can remember. It takes constant reflection to clean the grime and address our hygiene, in all its wonderous forms (put the fucking camera down please). Rorschach out. ----- I had an idea for a small short story about the after life where God pulls you into a small video editing room and makes you sit through every frame of what your eyes recorded. It would take a lifetime to get through, and every time you are committing a sin he pauses the giant film and you feel the utter presence of judgement. This goes on for every frame until you are begging for mercy with a newfound realization of just how damning the concept of an "observer" is. Smile, someone's watching. Sure as hell aint going to fool him with our curated album (can't we just look at the good stuff?). We look at all of it or none of it. Which brings us to the final point - did you fool anyone?
mocamoca 1y ago
I use a film camera, which removes the possibility of infinite shots. It works for me! And since I must print the pictures, I make duplicates and share with friends and family. You can give it a try: there are very easy cameras!
- markdown 1y ago
  I don't think there is even a print shop for film in my country anymore, with the last one shutting down last year.
  - tecleandor 1y ago
    Don't know what country you're in, but in general people has been picking up analog cameras again. Madrid probably has at least doubled or tripled the number of print shops in the last 5 years. The real problem is the price of film has skyrocketed. Since factories has been closing in the last ten years, the offer is low, and the demand is high... Even low quality Chinese stock is going for prices higher than professional rolls where 5 or 6 years ago.
  - mocamoca 1y ago
    Some companies accept films by postal mail! ... Of course it increases the price which is already expensive, as sibling poster wrote.
- rickdeckard 1y ago
  I was looking for a similar experience, where I take a picture only to immediately go back into the moment, without disrupting anything. All those compact cameras were still too large for that purpose, because as the saying goes: "The best camera is the one you always have on you" After some searching I found an AWESOME gem of a little camera: The DxO One, a camera from back in 2016 from DxO, a company actually specialized in benchmarking camera-quality. The device was built to be sold at ~700 USD, but flopped and can still be purchased as old-stock for ~110 USD now. Size is fantastic, Pictures are great, I can only recommend it if someone just wants to capture a moment like it is without people getting pulled out of it. The device is also somewhat hackable [0], as it's based on the Ambarella platform (RTOS and Linux). I started collecting infos about it to preserve it [1], there's still alot of potential in this little gem. [0]: https://github.com/rickdeck/DxO-One/wiki/1.-Hardware https://github.com/rickdeck/DxO-One/wiki/1.-Hardware [1]: https://github.com/rickdeck/DxO-One/wiki https://github.com/rickdeck/DxO-One/wiki
riffraff 1y ago
Here's my 20 years report: When I was an exchange student I lived with other people and we went out partying every night, had a ton of fun, and still had a ton of fun rewatching pictures of the night the next day. This was a time where you'd have an actual camera. Sometimes me and friends from that era share back the pictures and have a laugh. 10 years report: Nowadays google photos regularly shows me those "memories" from years ago of my kids (turning 9 and 11), and about half the time I share them back with my wife and viceversa, and we get moved a bit or have a fun moment. I really don't see why taking pictures would ruin an experience, unless you go _wildly_ overboard to prioritize the picture.
- WWLink 1y ago
  I'm with you here! I take lots of pictures. I picked up that stupid habit when I was a teenager with my family's digital camera. Eventually got a small canon for christmas and kept it in my pocket until I had a smartphone. I'm not the kinda person to hold my camera up in the air filming a concert or whatever. But pictures of family! Pictures of random food I enjoyed or found cute. Pictures of random cute things in the store. Pictures of friends and cars and the beach and whatever else. So much changes in the world. I love looking back at old pictures. During covid my mom and I would get together and dig through and find old stuff to post on facebook. It was a lot of fun. I mean. I have pictures of random old cereal boxes I found amusing at the time. I have pictures I'm quite proud of, and others that just capture random happy moments. I don't know what people mean about change? Things change a lot. People change, things change, the world changes. I have pictures of vegas casinos that were demolished years ago. Foods that aren't made anymore. I have a random picture of a quarter pounder meal from like 2005. Why not? XD Those sorts of things cost me no time or effort really. Whipped out the camera real quick. Click. Put it away. Go back to enjoying my life. :)
- michaelt 1y ago
  > I really don't see why taking pictures would ruin an experience, unless you go _wildly_ overboard to prioritize the picture. Some people learned this lesson in the days of clunky, fragile, expensive cameras. If you were carting around 5 lbs of DSLR camera and accessories, you weren't scrambling up that rock or going into the sea or getting on that rollercoaster.
vachina 1y ago
Some questions I ask myself before I take the camera out: 1. Is it a picture someone else would’ve already taken? 2. Does it have our faces in it? 3. Will it have historical significance in 10 years time? If all of it answers no, I rest easy knowing I missed nothing.
- WWLink 1y ago
  What if the picture does have historical significance but you don't know it yet?
- sensanaty 1y ago
  > 3. Will it have historical significance in 10 years time? I mean, almost by definition there's basically no way of knowing this right? A picture of a mountainside with nothing interesting going on other than nature might not be significant in 10 years, or maybe the entire landscape has transformed into something completely different. I grew up in Bali, Indonesia. In the 90s, where I lived was nothing but lush jungle and beaches, with a few very small houses here and there dotting things. By the 2000s we had actual asphalt roads, and by the 2010s we had a full on highway on the south of the island. The stretch of land where I grew up is quite literally incomparable to what it looked like before despite my house not changing much, and it took roughly 10 years to reach that state. I would've loved if I had a camera back then to record the changes as they were happening, because you'd be amazed how quickly things become significant in some way, not to mention any potential memories of a place you think of fondly!
- zirgs 1y ago
  The guy who took that photo of Barbra Streisand's house had no idea how significant that photo would become later.
- throwawaybob420 1y ago
  lol. This is such an odd way of living your life. I mean, historical significance? How would you even know that? And why should it matter if someone else took a similar photo? it’s your photo you’re taking it like come on man am I taking crazy pills over here?
- 1y ago
ZeroTalent 1y ago
Just AI them /s
junga 1y ago
> But with a picture, I could relive it for a bit. I used to think the same. But in the end, this is not true for me personally. Having pictures of events or valuable moments does not add any (or much) value when remembering these situations. This of course may differ from person to person - but I guess we use to have this assumption from your quote as a given default. Overall I get the most "value" from focusing on situations when they are there, instead of wasting it by capturing them.
justlikereddit 1y ago
Take pictures. Hoard them. No point sharing them, no point carefully organizing or editing them. Just know that somewhere there's the pile of pictures of years past, in approximately chronological order. You will not remember what you have forgotten. When you flip through the old photos you'll remember that you did much more than you can pull straight from memory. This becomes more valuable as you get older, not only will you likely feel that your memory is becoming lower in resolution(my memory felt photographic until late 20s, the assumption it would always be that good turned out wrong) but you'll also have more bygone years to remember from as you get older. But don't back up photos to an SSD that is unplugged from power.
RataNova 1y ago
That idea of just one intentional photo, like a group shot at the end, feels like a smart middle ground
- wseqyrku 1y ago
  I don't like those pictures, those almost always look artificial and empty. I think you can have your camera at your disposal and capture the picture of the moment as it happens. Sure, take a group shot but don't count to three as it most definitely ruins it.
  - RataNova 1y ago
    I guess for me, it's more about setting a low-pressure boundary so the whole day doesn't turn into a photoshoot
sneak 1y ago
There are a lot of different reasons for taking photos, though I carry my camera 24/7 because I am a photographer who makes visual art and I might make art any time of any day. It isn’t about publishing or social capital or performance, it’s about making the best art I can for me and myself alone.
deleted 1y ago
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rickdeckard 1y ago
Similar for me, I started looking for a small compact camera I can pull out, roughly aim at a scene and take plenty of pictures for later, with minimal disruption of the moment (I especially don't want to introduce a Smartphone to everything, I want people to continue in that moment without the impulse to pose for a picture). After searching alot, I found the long-discontinued DxO-One being a gem. A really nice blend of good camera-hardware and ultra-compact design, at a (now) crazy-low price. It almost has a analogue-camera feel to it, because you don't get to review the picture instantly but have to connect it to a phone or PC first. It's a hardware designed for a ~700 USD pricetag. It flopped but it can still be purchased at ~110 USD as old stock, and that's hard to beat for a large-sensor (1" size) camera with a great lens (f/1.8 with mechanical iris). It has a tiny display for rough configuration, linux OS, I started collecting data about it, because it also has quite some potential to be hacked and customized [0] [0]: https://github.com/rickdeck/DxO-One/wiki https://github.com/rickdeck/DxO-One/wiki
- LeratoAustini 1y ago
  I love hearing about stuff like this. Sounds like a fun device, weird niche and interesting to know there's some hackability. I appreciate your writing up your findings on the github too, thanks!
tenthirtyam 1y ago
For me the key is to use an actual (digital) camera to take photos, not a smartphone.
bambax 1y ago
> 10 years later, I regret having essentially no pictures of anything Yes. I take lots of photos and even I regret not having more, or videos of the kids learning to walk or learning to talk. Also: memories are fleeting, very fast. I've been keeping a journal for five years now; I try to describe my day the day after at the latest, but when I miss a day or two it's incredibly hard to remember anything--anything!!-- about what I did 48 hours ago. Some moments stay with you for the rest of your life, but most of the things that you do disappear from your mind extremely fast. You will absolutely remember the birth of your first kid, with many details and the sweet and sour smell of hospital corridors, camera or not; but not everything is like that (actually, nothing is like that!) Now the counter-argument is maybe that what you don't remember didn't deserve to be remembered; but I don't agree with that. Memories is the only thing that's truly ours.
chaosbolt 1y ago
Exactly the same, I now understand that I took that way too personally and having 0 pictures of yourself plus not having any social media made me lose contact with lots of old friends.
alistairSH 1y ago
For many years, I'd take a mix of photos - some posed, some candids, some landscape/architecture/whatever. Recently, I've found myself trending heavily towards candids/snapshots. Heck, I never asked for a Polaroid for Christmas to even further "dumb down" my photography. And all my 35mm film cameras are fixed-lens rangefinders (35 DC, 35 RC, and a Demi EE-17). I still try to be thoughtful about what/when I''m shooting. Especially with my film cameras (film + processing isn't cheap). But, I spend less total time looking through the viewfinder.
numpad0 1y ago
By show of hands, how many here have or had a Narrative Clip or equivalent? (I don't)
dghughes 1y ago
My story is when my Dad died and my family looked for a nice picture of him to use in his obituary it was difficult to do. Why? Nearly all pictures were birthdays, Christmas, maybe Thanksgiving, repeat. No spontaneous pictures just the basic holidays. I'm sure I did sneak a few candid pictures over the years but that leads to another issue a sea of unsorted pictures on who knows what media. Also elderly people not good with technology, the cost of it, may be embarrassed to say often no longer take pictures.
jay-barronville 1y ago
This comment is so relatable. For years, I made the conscious decision to focus entirely on enjoying moments instead of taking photos and recording videos. I now regret having been so strict about that. Before I got married and settled down to work on building my family, I had so much fun as a single man. I traveled to so many places, enjoyed many concerts, went to lots of events/conferences, etc. Fast forward to now, I have nothing to show for most of it (other than maybe passport stamps and whatnot). Sometimes, I wish I could show my wife what it was like when I was in this or that country, but I can’t—it’s all just in my head! My wife is pretty much the opposite of me when it comes to this. She has snapshots of most of her adult life. I came to truly appreciate her commitment to maintaining snapshots of our lives after we had our first child, because I noticed how quickly our little baby was growing and I constantly wanted to see how he looked and what he was doing a month ago, two months ago, etc. If it had been up to me, we likely would have very few of the photos and videos we have now.
- AlexeyBelov 1y ago
  Nothing to show for it? You were there! I don't get this mode of thinking, that if you don't have pictures there is no proof you were somewhere. Are we trying to prove something to the jury or what?
coldtea 1y ago
>There must be a balance. Why? I mean, why we cannot just NOT take pictures, or taken them very very very rarely, like on our wedding, kids first steps, or something major like that? We managed to do without immediate access to photography for some millenia, and with very ocassional and rare use of it for the best part of the 20th century.
- jdsnape 1y ago
  We did without it, sure, but I’m pretty sure people in ages past would have wanted to take photos just as we do now
- throwawaybob420 1y ago
  Such an odd thing to say. You really think people 500 years ago didn’t yearn to capture moments?
  - coldtea 1y ago
    Yes. Like we didn't "yearn to capture" moments all the time, the way we do now, even in the 80s and 90s. Even though regular and compact and even disposable cameras were available, few walked around with one or used within the year. At best somebody would take a camera on holiday or some major life event, which is like 1/100 of current use.
xnx 1y ago
In another 10 years, it's very likely that the majority of our waking hours (especially on vacation) will be continuously recorded by some worn gadget (e.g. glasses or a locket). A separate "AI" will review that footage for photographically or narratively interesting stills and video clips. There will also likely be a tour-guide "AI" that will encourage you to see certain sites and pose for certain types of photos.

andrehacker 1y ago

When I was young and easily swayed, I took life advice from a well-known Dutch comedian (Youp van 't Hek) who loved to mock tourists taking those cringe “holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa” photos. The message was clear: tourist photos were tacky, and besides, you could always find a better photo in the gift shop anyway. So for years, I smugly avoided taking photos—too cool for clichés. It only hit me much later that I wasn’t missing out on better shots of monuments… I was missing pictures of the people I was with. Family and friends looking younger, sometimes happier, and—how shall I put it—sometimes still alive.

memhole 1y ago
On a backpacking trip, a guy and I were hiking together for a moment. I was snapping photos of the landscape and he started to chastise me for it. He made the same point. It’s about the people you’re with. Eventually, all the photos blur together. He’s not wrong. I’ve got tons of pictures of the outdoors. Not that they aren’t beautiful. Pressed, I mostly couldn’t tell one from the other.
- XorNot 1y ago
  Conversely having high res camera phones is magical when you have children. They really do grow up so fast.
  - riffraff 1y ago
    From the other side, having good pictures of your parents (ideally with your kids) is a good idea. They also go away faster than you expect.
- Gigachad 1y ago
  I kind of do agree about photos of landscapes. There's nothing that really ties me to those photos. Tend to stick to photographing people and particularly interesting things rather than just a good view of some hills.
- kmoser 1y ago
  He's not wrong...unless you're planning to use that landscape photo in a way that will give you some sort of benefit in the future (emotional, financial, etc.). It's easy (an often correct) to assume that most such photos will never be seen again, or maybe scrolled by quickly at best, but the fact is one doesn't know the motivation of the photographer, nor how they might change their motivation in the future to actually make use of that photo.
- 1659447091 1y ago
  One of my main reason for using Strava* is for keeping context with my travel photos. Even if it's just walks around a city center, I have a thing for photographing street art, and uploading the different photos to my walks and it places them at their locations on the recorded path/map of the walk (or hike) to be revisited/replayed when feeling nostalgic. It also helps to be more discerning about what photos to keep (do I really need another wide landscape shot?) But once the "worthy" photos of my walk/hike are added, I remove the others from my phone and make the recorded activity private for me to enjoy. The context + notes with the photos in one place makes it all mean so much more when I revisit them. I completely ignore all social bits of the app, but this might appeal to some since you can share/fork an activity to the accounts of people that where with you. *I don't work for them, but been using it over a decade now
FredPret 1y ago
Being too cool for school really steals a lot of joy from the people who subscribe to that idea. I was a tourist at Pisa not long ago and we really unironically enjoyed "leaning" into our roles as tourists, and now we have fun pictures.
marticode 1y ago
I had and followed that advice but in a slightly different delivery: "take photos of peoples, not things".
- andrehacker 1y ago
  Yes, I ended up exactly there... 20 years later.
- zirgs 1y ago
  We are no longer in the film era. You won't run out of storage. So I take pictures of both.
__MatrixMan__ 1y ago
I have a friend who refuses to take pictures without people in them. It seemed dumb at first but after several years of pictures piling up I can see he had a pretty good point.
- riffraff 1y ago
  This is old advice, I remember it being framed as "if I wanted a picture of a monument I'd buy a postcard", and postcards basically no longer exist. It made some sense to take pictures of panoramas or art when you could show something to people that could not see it otherwise, but in this era it makes no sense (unless you enjoy photography as a hobby). A goofy picture of you kissing some old bronze statue? Dumb, but yours.
  - JKCalhoun 1y ago
    It’s not just “making it your own”. I took the girls all around the US, around the world even as they were growing up. I had grown up in a “camera family” so always had one on trips as a parent too. Now, with two decades behind me, the photos of my young daughters, wife are the vacation photos I return to. Oldest daughter is wearing a kimono sipping tea at some place in the mountains of Japan… Two youngest are chasing each other on the beach of some island in Hawaii…
    - brabel 1y ago
      I suspect those photos would have been as precious to you if they were taken in your backyard.
      - JKCalhoun 1y ago
        You’re right. And I have those too. I was responding to the camera + vacation specifically though.
  - card_zero 1y ago
    Turns out that the things I wish I'd taken photos of were: bookshelves (with titles visible), crappy old computers and things on the screen, posters I used to have on the wall, my everyday clothes, streets with parked cars, the inside of an art supply store. These are not achievements, or unusual places, or humans. The things I'd like to see are stores of subtle cultural information than gets lost because it seems unimportant, and then a couple of decades later I want to look at all the details of it again but I can't. What was that car I used to be slightly interested by every time I walked past it? What range of items used to be for sale? What books did I have? What was actually on that poster that got torn and thrown out and now it's impossible to find another? Instead of answers, I have holiday snaps and pictures of humans.
_glass 1y ago
I missed out so much. When I was a college student, I rejected photos, as digital cameras where everywhere, and I was a snob, in my high school times taking analog camera photo. I read a lot of books about Zen, living in the moment, but now I regret this. The view photos I have I cherish as very dear memories.
- j45 1y ago
  Taking photos and videos for yourself or family is very different than for public posting.
- kccqzy 1y ago
  When modern smartphones first came out, I rejected them as a snob too. I continued to believe a dumb phone plus a dedicated camera was a better choice. But of course I often forget to bring the better camera out and I missed out on so much too. There's a reason people say the best camera is the camera you have with you.
assimpleaspossi 1y ago
I've started more traveling the world the past two years. The pictures I review when I get back didn't seem as interesting as those with my wife in the scene. Even a crowded street scene with multicolored houses was just OK except the one with my wife looking at a fruit stand. From now on, I will include my travel companions whenever I can.
lupusreal 1y ago
I generally have disdain for picture taking on vacations, but leaning on the tower is definitely one I would make an exception for. Sure it's tacky and unoriginal, but that's what makes it mandatory!

enthdegree 1y ago

I like seeing pictures taken by my friends. I like discussing those pictures with them. Conversely I also like creating and curating my own pictures to share with like-minded friends. It is prosocial all around. The article is appalling. To me it more effectively conveys his character than his ideas. Maybe for some people it really is hard to find a balance.

socalgal2 1y ago

I think I’m living in the moment. I still take 50-100 pictures on a day trip to a new place. I don’t feel like that means I don’t enjoy the moment. took a ski lift up a mountain, too maybe 3 pics up and 3 down. 20-30 seconds total of a 5-10 minute experience If I was to guess what might take me out is if I was addicted to instantly posting them, watching the likes and comments flow in, and viewing my friends posts, at the same moment. I take the pictures and then a day or two later I post 5-8 of the best, if I thought this particular experience was worth sharing. The point being I’m not thinking about posting and likes during the experience. My time spent on photos is < 1%

-__---____-ZXyw 1y ago
Have you ever gone on a day trip with no camera of any kind?
- socalgal2 1y ago
  Yes, I was an adult before digital cameras were a thing. I have what feels like zero pictures of my life before about 1996. Comparing the two I will gladly take having a camera over not having a camera.
  - codingdave 1y ago
    This is one of the quieter yet transformative changes I've seen tech bring to life - digital cameras removed the cost and hassle of film. Photography before the mid 90s was about deliberate choices of whether a shot was worth the actual cost of the film as well as being one of a couple dozen shots available to you without having to change film rolls. But now, whipping out 50-100 photos while out for the day is quick, easy, and almost free. Consumption of the photos changed as well, but I'm going to let the idea of negatives, prints, and literal slide shows wait for another day. The point is that photography today is not the same as photography in the prior century.
JKCalhoun 1y ago
I travel still (in a hotel in Obon, Scotland right now) and do take photos. I take a lot less than I used to. I do try to take in the moment now.

_heimdall 1y ago

At least for my father in law, the habit of recording everything started when personal camcorders were first release. We have countless tape of completely random day to day life when my wife was little. There are obviously tapes of more important or memorable moments too, but he just always had a camcorder rolling.

esafak 1y ago
If it is not too personal, I suggest uploading it to Youtube as a public record of the past.
gopher_space 1y ago
The super 8's of my ex's childhood were magical.

Spooky23 1y ago

My son and I went to Rome, and the ridiculous behaviors from people getting their must have shots is ridiculous. My favorite shots are selfies… one with the two of us on the tarmac in front of the plane on arrival, the other on a random street. I lost my wife to cancer, and regret that pre-kid, we took very few pictures relatively speaking, and I cherish the ones I have.

ivape 1y ago
When you watch those episodes of Maury where they have a father-less baby up on stage, and they are trying to figure who the daddy is, you have to contend with the fact that there's an entire audience in-person and at-home that are just taking part in the sheer entertainment of what will ultimately be that child's most embarrassing and deep sorrow in life. Not only that, but we film the spectacle. This was a hit show for decades and commonly accepted to be hilarious, especially those situations. At no point in those decades did society stand back and examine just how heinous it is. I suspect this is true for large scale exhibitionism and voyeurism (which is what this is, you are either a subject or the voyeur in these pictures, and if you are both, then you are narcissist). It's been going on for decades and it's heinous. The sheer scale of it will not allow our society to stand back and examine it. I consider all these things part of our current public crucifixions. And like litter, the harmless gum wrappers (the selfies, the "look where I am" photos, etc) have accumulated into a pure garbage world. That's the power of accumulation, and now we all live in Garbage Land. Our society is nasty and has been for as long as we can remember. It takes constant reflection to clean the grime and address our hygiene, in all its wonderous forms (put the fucking camera down please). Rorschach out. ----- I had an idea for a small short story about the after life where God pulls you into a small video editing room and makes you sit through every frame of what your eyes recorded. It would take a lifetime to get through, and every time you are committing a sin he pauses the giant film and you feel the utter presence of judgement. This goes on for every frame until you are begging for mercy with a newfound realization of just how damning the concept of an "observer" is. Smile, someone's watching. Sure as hell aint going to fool him with our curated album (can't we just look at the good stuff?). We look at all of it or none of it. Which brings us to the final point - did you fool anyone?

mocamoca 1y ago

I use a film camera, which removes the possibility of infinite shots. It works for me! And since I must print the pictures, I make duplicates and share with friends and family. You can give it a try: there are very easy cameras!

markdown 1y ago
I don't think there is even a print shop for film in my country anymore, with the last one shutting down last year.
- tecleandor 1y ago
  Don't know what country you're in, but in general people has been picking up analog cameras again. Madrid probably has at least doubled or tripled the number of print shops in the last 5 years. The real problem is the price of film has skyrocketed. Since factories has been closing in the last ten years, the offer is low, and the demand is high... Even low quality Chinese stock is going for prices higher than professional rolls where 5 or 6 years ago.
- mocamoca 1y ago
  Some companies accept films by postal mail! ... Of course it increases the price which is already expensive, as sibling poster wrote.
rickdeckard 1y ago
I was looking for a similar experience, where I take a picture only to immediately go back into the moment, without disrupting anything. All those compact cameras were still too large for that purpose, because as the saying goes: "The best camera is the one you always have on you" After some searching I found an AWESOME gem of a little camera: The DxO One, a camera from back in 2016 from DxO, a company actually specialized in benchmarking camera-quality. The device was built to be sold at ~700 USD, but flopped and can still be purchased as old-stock for ~110 USD now. Size is fantastic, Pictures are great, I can only recommend it if someone just wants to capture a moment like it is without people getting pulled out of it. The device is also somewhat hackable [0], as it's based on the Ambarella platform (RTOS and Linux). I started collecting infos about it to preserve it [1], there's still alot of potential in this little gem. [0]: https://github.com/rickdeck/DxO-One/wiki/1.-Hardware https://github.com/rickdeck/DxO-One/wiki/1.-Hardware [1]: https://github.com/rickdeck/DxO-One/wiki https://github.com/rickdeck/DxO-One/wiki

riffraff 1y ago

Here's my 20 years report: When I was an exchange student I lived with other people and we went out partying every night, had a ton of fun, and still had a ton of fun rewatching pictures of the night the next day. This was a time where you'd have an actual camera. Sometimes me and friends from that era share back the pictures and have a laugh. 10 years report: Nowadays google photos regularly shows me those "memories" from years ago of my kids (turning 9 and 11), and about half the time I share them back with my wife and viceversa, and we get moved a bit or have a fun moment. I really don't see why taking pictures would ruin an experience, unless you go _wildly_ overboard to prioritize the picture.

WWLink 1y ago
I'm with you here! I take lots of pictures. I picked up that stupid habit when I was a teenager with my family's digital camera. Eventually got a small canon for christmas and kept it in my pocket until I had a smartphone. I'm not the kinda person to hold my camera up in the air filming a concert or whatever. But pictures of family! Pictures of random food I enjoyed or found cute. Pictures of random cute things in the store. Pictures of friends and cars and the beach and whatever else. So much changes in the world. I love looking back at old pictures. During covid my mom and I would get together and dig through and find old stuff to post on facebook. It was a lot of fun. I mean. I have pictures of random old cereal boxes I found amusing at the time. I have pictures I'm quite proud of, and others that just capture random happy moments. I don't know what people mean about change? Things change a lot. People change, things change, the world changes. I have pictures of vegas casinos that were demolished years ago. Foods that aren't made anymore. I have a random picture of a quarter pounder meal from like 2005. Why not? XD Those sorts of things cost me no time or effort really. Whipped out the camera real quick. Click. Put it away. Go back to enjoying my life. :)
michaelt 1y ago
> I really don't see why taking pictures would ruin an experience, unless you go _wildly_ overboard to prioritize the picture. Some people learned this lesson in the days of clunky, fragile, expensive cameras. If you were carting around 5 lbs of DSLR camera and accessories, you weren't scrambling up that rock or going into the sea or getting on that rollercoaster.

vachina 1y ago

Some questions I ask myself before I take the camera out: 1. Is it a picture someone else would’ve already taken? 2. Does it have our faces in it? 3. Will it have historical significance in 10 years time? If all of it answers no, I rest easy knowing I missed nothing.

WWLink 1y ago
What if the picture does have historical significance but you don't know it yet?
sensanaty 1y ago
> 3. Will it have historical significance in 10 years time? I mean, almost by definition there's basically no way of knowing this right? A picture of a mountainside with nothing interesting going on other than nature might not be significant in 10 years, or maybe the entire landscape has transformed into something completely different. I grew up in Bali, Indonesia. In the 90s, where I lived was nothing but lush jungle and beaches, with a few very small houses here and there dotting things. By the 2000s we had actual asphalt roads, and by the 2010s we had a full on highway on the south of the island. The stretch of land where I grew up is quite literally incomparable to what it looked like before despite my house not changing much, and it took roughly 10 years to reach that state. I would've loved if I had a camera back then to record the changes as they were happening, because you'd be amazed how quickly things become significant in some way, not to mention any potential memories of a place you think of fondly!
zirgs 1y ago
The guy who took that photo of Barbra Streisand's house had no idea how significant that photo would become later.
throwawaybob420 1y ago
lol. This is such an odd way of living your life. I mean, historical significance? How would you even know that? And why should it matter if someone else took a similar photo? it’s your photo you’re taking it like come on man am I taking crazy pills over here?
1y ago

ZeroTalent 1y ago

Just AI them /s

junga 1y ago

> But with a picture, I could relive it for a bit. I used to think the same. But in the end, this is not true for me personally. Having pictures of events or valuable moments does not add any (or much) value when remembering these situations. This of course may differ from person to person - but I guess we use to have this assumption from your quote as a given default. Overall I get the most "value" from focusing on situations when they are there, instead of wasting it by capturing them.

justlikereddit 1y ago

Take pictures. Hoard them. No point sharing them, no point carefully organizing or editing them. Just know that somewhere there's the pile of pictures of years past, in approximately chronological order. You will not remember what you have forgotten. When you flip through the old photos you'll remember that you did much more than you can pull straight from memory. This becomes more valuable as you get older, not only will you likely feel that your memory is becoming lower in resolution(my memory felt photographic until late 20s, the assumption it would always be that good turned out wrong) but you'll also have more bygone years to remember from as you get older. But don't back up photos to an SSD that is unplugged from power.

RataNova 1y ago

That idea of just one intentional photo, like a group shot at the end, feels like a smart middle ground

wseqyrku 1y ago
I don't like those pictures, those almost always look artificial and empty. I think you can have your camera at your disposal and capture the picture of the moment as it happens. Sure, take a group shot but don't count to three as it most definitely ruins it.
- RataNova 1y ago
  I guess for me, it's more about setting a low-pressure boundary so the whole day doesn't turn into a photoshoot

sneak 1y ago

There are a lot of different reasons for taking photos, though I carry my camera 24/7 because I am a photographer who makes visual art and I might make art any time of any day. It isn’t about publishing or social capital or performance, it’s about making the best art I can for me and myself alone.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

rickdeckard 1y ago

Similar for me, I started looking for a small compact camera I can pull out, roughly aim at a scene and take plenty of pictures for later, with minimal disruption of the moment (I especially don't want to introduce a Smartphone to everything, I want people to continue in that moment without the impulse to pose for a picture). After searching alot, I found the long-discontinued DxO-One being a gem. A really nice blend of good camera-hardware and ultra-compact design, at a (now) crazy-low price. It almost has a analogue-camera feel to it, because you don't get to review the picture instantly but have to connect it to a phone or PC first. It's a hardware designed for a ~700 USD pricetag. It flopped but it can still be purchased at ~110 USD as old stock, and that's hard to beat for a large-sensor (1" size) camera with a great lens (f/1.8 with mechanical iris). It has a tiny display for rough configuration, linux OS, I started collecting data about it, because it also has quite some potential to be hacked and customized [0] [0]: https://github.com/rickdeck/DxO-One/wiki https://github.com/rickdeck/DxO-One/wiki

LeratoAustini 1y ago
I love hearing about stuff like this. Sounds like a fun device, weird niche and interesting to know there's some hackability. I appreciate your writing up your findings on the github too, thanks!

tenthirtyam 1y ago

For me the key is to use an actual (digital) camera to take photos, not a smartphone.

bambax 1y ago

> 10 years later, I regret having essentially no pictures of anything Yes. I take lots of photos and even I regret not having more, or videos of the kids learning to walk or learning to talk. Also: memories are fleeting, very fast. I've been keeping a journal for five years now; I try to describe my day the day after at the latest, but when I miss a day or two it's incredibly hard to remember anything--anything!!-- about what I did 48 hours ago. Some moments stay with you for the rest of your life, but most of the things that you do disappear from your mind extremely fast. You will absolutely remember the birth of your first kid, with many details and the sweet and sour smell of hospital corridors, camera or not; but not everything is like that (actually, nothing is like that!) Now the counter-argument is maybe that what you don't remember didn't deserve to be remembered; but I don't agree with that. Memories is the only thing that's truly ours.

chaosbolt 1y ago

Exactly the same, I now understand that I took that way too personally and having 0 pictures of yourself plus not having any social media made me lose contact with lots of old friends.

alistairSH 1y ago

For many years, I'd take a mix of photos - some posed, some candids, some landscape/architecture/whatever. Recently, I've found myself trending heavily towards candids/snapshots. Heck, I never asked for a Polaroid for Christmas to even further "dumb down" my photography. And all my 35mm film cameras are fixed-lens rangefinders (35 DC, 35 RC, and a Demi EE-17). I still try to be thoughtful about what/when I''m shooting. Especially with my film cameras (film + processing isn't cheap). But, I spend less total time looking through the viewfinder.

numpad0 1y ago

By show of hands, how many here have or had a Narrative Clip or equivalent? (I don't)

dghughes 1y ago

My story is when my Dad died and my family looked for a nice picture of him to use in his obituary it was difficult to do. Why? Nearly all pictures were birthdays, Christmas, maybe Thanksgiving, repeat. No spontaneous pictures just the basic holidays. I'm sure I did sneak a few candid pictures over the years but that leads to another issue a sea of unsorted pictures on who knows what media. Also elderly people not good with technology, the cost of it, may be embarrassed to say often no longer take pictures.

jay-barronville 1y ago

This comment is so relatable. For years, I made the conscious decision to focus entirely on enjoying moments instead of taking photos and recording videos. I now regret having been so strict about that. Before I got married and settled down to work on building my family, I had so much fun as a single man. I traveled to so many places, enjoyed many concerts, went to lots of events/conferences, etc. Fast forward to now, I have nothing to show for most of it (other than maybe passport stamps and whatnot). Sometimes, I wish I could show my wife what it was like when I was in this or that country, but I can’t—it’s all just in my head! My wife is pretty much the opposite of me when it comes to this. She has snapshots of most of her adult life. I came to truly appreciate her commitment to maintaining snapshots of our lives after we had our first child, because I noticed how quickly our little baby was growing and I constantly wanted to see how he looked and what he was doing a month ago, two months ago, etc. If it had been up to me, we likely would have very few of the photos and videos we have now.

AlexeyBelov 1y ago
Nothing to show for it? You were there! I don't get this mode of thinking, that if you don't have pictures there is no proof you were somewhere. Are we trying to prove something to the jury or what?

coldtea 1y ago

>There must be a balance. Why? I mean, why we cannot just NOT take pictures, or taken them very very very rarely, like on our wedding, kids first steps, or something major like that? We managed to do without immediate access to photography for some millenia, and with very ocassional and rare use of it for the best part of the 20th century.

jdsnape 1y ago
We did without it, sure, but I’m pretty sure people in ages past would have wanted to take photos just as we do now
throwawaybob420 1y ago
Such an odd thing to say. You really think people 500 years ago didn’t yearn to capture moments?
- coldtea 1y ago
  Yes. Like we didn't "yearn to capture" moments all the time, the way we do now, even in the 80s and 90s. Even though regular and compact and even disposable cameras were available, few walked around with one or used within the year. At best somebody would take a camera on holiday or some major life event, which is like 1/100 of current use.

xnx 1y ago

In another 10 years, it's very likely that the majority of our waking hours (especially on vacation) will be continuously recorded by some worn gadget (e.g. glasses or a locket). A separate "AI" will review that footage for photographically or narratively interesting stills and video clips. There will also likely be a tour-guide "AI" that will encourage you to see certain sites and pose for certain types of photos.