"We can take only 3 more" , my dad said." By chance if we get extras ,we might be able to take 5 more. So 2 at Qutub Minar, 1 at India Gate and we should be fine" he continued. This was way back in the mid 2000's and my dad was talking about nothing else but the films remaining in the Kodak camera roll while we were on our Shimla Manali Delhi trip. 24 or 36 films in a roll was the standard then and when we went on trips we would take the 36 one. In case we required more, touristy places would always have these roll sellers as well. But there was never a time like that- as far as I remember trips were meant such that they get done in one roll. Why more -you know? After the trip, these Kodak rolls would be given for developing and printing. Once that was done, put them in a album and you are done. During family get- togethers these were shared with relatives. Birthdays were another event when such pics were taken. Any other special event like award winning ceremonies and all ,they had photographers who you paid for getting clicked and printed.
Then just as things evolve , the camera evolved too. The digital camera came along. A camera where the 24/36 restriction did not apply. The number of pics that could be stored in the digital camera was dependent on the memory. The more the memory the more the pics that could be taken and later could be transferred to a computer for viewing . They could also be printed if required.
Smartphones with increasingly better camera quality were a revolution in photography. Photographs could be easily taken on a camera and with the advent of internet and low cost data plans , photos could be shared instantly on social media. People now share pics on Facebook that they would previously have been hesitant to share to such a large audience. Photo editing and sharing apps like Instagram are a hit among the youth of today.
Potraying " How I look good" or "How I have a good life" through photographs is very commonplace these days. In fact some late millenials ( I mean the post 1995 gen) thinks that if you don't show love or good life on social media ,it simply doesn't exist.
There is a joke saying that if your wife is fighting with you , just tell her you want to take a selfie. For the good looking selfie she might smile and hence stop fighting for a while. Thus photographs even though seemingly real can be unreal too.Photographs are a depiction of emotions as they would like to be portrayed not necessarily as they are truly. As Susan Sontag has put it in her Essays 'On Photography'- "Needing to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs is an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted. Industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution."
From the limited photographs in my childhood to the unlimited photos that we have now, science and technology have come a long way. And given our love for getting photographed and sharing our experiences , photography will only grow further. Newer and better ways of photography as well as sharing photos will continue to evolve. Because as Bruno Barbey has put it so aptly , "Photography is the only language that can be understood anywhere in the world"
#dsaidso #worldphotographyday #worldphotographyday2018
- Dhanashree
Https://dsaidso.blogspot.com
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