GOING OUT OF "FOCUS"

Joseph Nicephore Niepce, on a summer day in 1827, made the first photographic image using his camera obscura. But today, I sit here and think if he would be happy to see how his invention is being put to use.

Using technology isn’t something new for people; prehistoric caveman has played with fire, which was a new technology for him way back then. Today, the comparatively new technology that makes everyone go crazy is taking photos using their smartphones, cameras and then sharing it over some social networking website.

I was strongly inspired and worried by the way the cameras and the photos affect our lives, two incidents made me to think about that, one, the article about a small kid and two, was how my own classmates were running mad to get them clicked. 

Let me start with the first story, a father assumed that his 3 year old kid enjoyed the superpower it gained in using the touch screen of his iPhone , but over a period of time it proved to be wrong. She was having an obsession for photos, she seemed to be too much perturbed about the way she looked, and she was becoming overly self-conscious.

The kid was asking her parents to take a picture of her when she did something new, the parents were awed by the way she reacted, for them she should be more involved in the moment rather than thinking if the moment is worth being documented.

Though the father doesn’t deny the fact that, his kid has to develop an awareness of  how she looked and her relationship with others, he is worried about the way she is becoming more self-conscious, the way she was becoming older at a young age , it simply didn’t seem to be a constructive effect anymore

Second story is more of a personal experience, a couple of weeks ago we went on a class trip, I would say that the way my friends behaved was quite poignant to me, I am almost certain that none of my friends enjoyed the scenic beauty or wondered how the pine forest around us was perfectly aligned naturally, instead, my friends were involved and almost forced me to involve in a weird story, they were trying to convert every moment of that trip to a photo opportunity.

If you take life to be a book, photos are just anchors of memory, these photos act as only bookmarks, these photos can’t write stories on its own, and we can’t have hundreds of photos with no stories to share. The very umbilical cord that tries to connect us with others, shouldn’t strangle us right…??? 

I will surely say that; we are losing our precious time in getting a perfect shot by fighting with our electronic devices. In doing this we are making an average experience which else would have been a great experience.

A birthday party doesn’t seem to get completed without hundred photos taken, which would surely include a considerable number of selfies, and pictures of our tilted faces. Reveling in the party is much more an enriching experience, than trying to enjoy the moments from behind the screen. We all know that, there are people who don’t take single photos, but remember and cherish the moments much better later.

There would always be a new social media tool to distract us, but there could never be a tool to replace our memories, I accept that we are great with multitasking, but studies show that multitasking reduces the way we remember things, so we can’t argue that we will create a great experience at the same time we handle our cameras.

I am not asking you people to agree or disagree with my point, because that becomes voting, I am just asking you people to think…So, next time you are with your friends relinquish your pavlovian search for your smartphone because great moments come from great opportunities and opportunities are like heart beats, you can’t afford to skip them.

P.S. When you are out of focus in front of cameras, you always have another chance but when you lose focus on people around you, i doubt your second chances...and courtesy to star sports for the last line(opportunities are like heartbeats, you can't afford to skip them).