This great photo taken by Dave Bullock for Wired of a gig at Coachella got us thinking. Quite a party – but when you look deeper, there appears to be a lot of people taking photos in the audience. It’s not hard to be reminded of camera-wielding tourists who arrive at an attraction and spend more time looking through a lens at the attraction than looking at it directly and taking it.
In similar ways, these music fans seem to be recording a memory that they never really experience. They’re too busy taking that shot to actually be there in the moment.
And the reason? Like the tourist, they want to share. But today they share that memory instantly via email and MMS to their friends on Facebook or readers of their blog. They share so that other people can see the photo of a moment that they actually didn’t see. And the motivation? For social status: to bolster the image their friends and network have of them.
So in summary: these folks are taking photos of moments in order to share those moments with others in order to gain status for having experienced a moment they never really had.
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Sadly, Coachella is a perfect example of something that used to be a great experience that has turned into something of a social status.
April 29th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Seems a bit extreme to me….I don’t feel removed or detached or that I missed out on an experience because I was taking a photo instead of soaking in everything around me. And I don’t think people who take photos and then share them fail to truely live in the moment – I think people take photos and share them so that friends, family, whomever can get a taste of the emotion of a moment in time they weren’t present for.
April 29th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
“They’re too busy taking that shot to actually be there in the moment.”
What about the people who don’t dance? or never bothered too push close?
April 29th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Thanks for the compliment on the photo. Interesting take on the fan photos thing.
Personally I’m shooting photos because I love doing it and the money doesn’t hurt either. Somehow I don’t think you were referring to professional photographers.
=]
Btw, I was dancing when I took that photo.
April 29th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Your post reminds me of my grandmothers lounge. 30 years ago she had a new lounge delivered in leather which had a great leather smell. She covered it with blankets so not to wear the leather out. Worst still nobody ever sat in the ceremonial lounge but she used to keep the door open so that visitors would get a whiff of the leather.
So even back then people sought status from others for having something they did not actually experience.
April 30th, 2008 at 12:14 am
Don Norman wrote something with very similar sentiments in ‘The Design of Everyday Things” (or was it one of his other books?). i.e. technology that is fiddly to use takes you even further away from the moment that you seek to record.
I think juicecaster wraps the camera on your mobile phone so it’s literally one click to take the photo, one click to confirm and it automatically gets uploaded to web, twittered and facebooked. That’s seems like a pretty good way of allowing you to capture a moment while still being there. Haven’t tried it myself though.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:28 am
I agree that the camera we hold up above the crowd limits if not removes us from the experience, but the fact people are willing to sacrifice their own moment to share it (if for no other reason than status) is a phenomenon that will remain.
Flash forward ten years when cameras are integrated into our sunglasses, linked to our social networks via wi-fi, and streaming video without the need to press a button or lift a finger. The personal experience and shared experience will be seamlessly intertwined.
So in summary: Personal sacrifice for the sake of sharing is temporary.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Your comment implies that there is little more to an experience than sight. For those taking pictures of this performer, I bet they remember the touch of other bodies pressed against them, the smell of sweat, soda and whatever else in the air, and the sounds of the music mixed with singing screaming fans all around them. These photographers and videographers are capturing 1D of a multi-dimensional experience. I bet if you asked them, they would certainly say they weren’t missing anything.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Piers – you’ve stole my thunder! I was going to write about the very same thing on my blog! Never mind – saves me the time and you’ve got better grammar than me anyway.
This is something I think about a bit. When I go running around London I constantly see tourists being photographed next to some historic thing. Teh same as in most parts of the world. Now to me, as well as the ‘Experience for yourself v Experience time after time but not properly’ debate there’s an interesting thing in ‘Experience v Evidence.’
I don’t fully understand why people take photographs of themselves in front of historical stuff. The stuff is the interesting thing, not the person? I see this as proof that the person has been there. Exactly as you say – it’s a badge of honour socially to be able to prove one has been to see historical things and travelled. But who questions this? Who does it really matter to? I don’t have the first clue whether some of my friends have widely travelled and they don’t feel the need to prove it to me with photographic evidence.
I take a lot of photographs generally – it doesn’t matter if the thing is ‘historical’ or not. Stuff interests me. My motivations are to capture something interesting, and simply because there’s so much stuff to experience – so I can look at it again from my individual POV. I mean, is there really any need to go to Trafalgar Square if all yuo’re doing is taking pictures? Just go on Flickr and find some…
May 1st, 2008 at 4:56 am
At least they are going to the events and being social, instead of reading about them on the internet. In today’s concert and music scene, just getting the people to buy the tickets is hard enough, but these kids taking the pictures are helping to push artists and promote them to their friends. I think its fantastic and artists should not only be flattered but encourage this behavior. Maybe the friend who gets the SMS next time will go to the show and buy a t-shirt and some iTunes.
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:18 am
just got back from the cans festival (http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/video/2008/may/02/cansfestival) in london and the place was heaving with people taking photos. and you know what? i felt like I was getting in their way. i didn’t get a chance to take everything in because there were arms thurst in front of my face every 30secs with a camera phone attached to the end of them. it became one big trophy hunting session – is this what the organisers envisaged?
however, i went to prince at the o2 in london last year and photography was banned. at first i thought angry thoughts… but it turned out being one of the best gigs i’d ever been to. maybe the purple one has a point??
May 5th, 2008 at 11:20 am
If a tree falls in the forest an no one posts a picture of it on facebook did it ever really happen?
May 5th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
How terribly sad, if true.
May 10th, 2008 at 6:12 am