This reminds me a great deal of the insights of Susan Sontag in her essay On Photography. To wit: "A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also

This reminds me a great deal of the insights of Susan Sontag in her essay On Photography. To wit: "A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it -- by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting experience into an image, a souvenir. Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs... Most tourists feel compelled to put the camera between themselves and whatever is remarkable they encounter. Unsure of other responses, they take a picture." The whole essay is really worth reading - looking specifically at photography, you could make an argument that our other tools like Facebook are growing to fill a similar aggressive, certifying role in our culture... You can find it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/On-Photography-Susan-Sontag/dp/0312420099/ http://www.amazon.com/On-Photography-Susan-Sontag/dp/0312420...