A couple weeks ago Nat and I went to the Russian Bremen Musicians show. It was our first outing together since I
started using a smart phone. Enamored
with the idea of having a decent tiny camera on me and spurned by the site of other
parents snapping photos of their children I was about to take a photo of Nat in front of a New Year's Tree. But then I did not.
Nat was not
thrilled about posing at that moment.
The room was dark and crowded. Getting
a shot without other people in it would have been close to impossible.
I quickly
abandoned the idea. I did snap a couple
of low quality photos of Nat at the restaurant we went to after the show. Looking at these photos later, I wondered why
I did it. What important moment did I try
to capture, and what am I teaching my son by acting that way?
My conclusion
was that there is almost no value to these photos. There is nothing beautiful or particularly
interesting or memorable about them. The
photos did not capture the essence of the evening Nat and I spent
together. The moments I remember about
the evening are not at all the same as
the ones I did or would have been able to capture on camera.
Another
thought occurred to me. In this day and
age everyone is snapping photos of everything, and then sharing them across the
social network. But by doing so, are we
missing something else? What are we not capturing that cannot be
photographed? Moments that can only be
described? What moments are we missing
or ruining by having a camera in our hands?