DOCUMENTIA

I'll go along with that. When photography first began, the subject had to remain motionless while the image was recorded on the glass plates. Some of the earliest public events photographs in the United States actually were made in Mecixo, in the 1840s, during the war there. There will be some soldiers fairly well represented in the center of the image, and a lot of blurs at the edges, where people and animals were moving while the plate was being exposed.



These boys had to sit still, and keep their mounts still, until the photographer told them he had an image. I don't know if you can see it, but the horses did not keep still, and their heads are a blur. Photography meant something different when getting the image was so difficult.

There are good things and bad things about photography. Richard III was made into a monster by Shakespeare's play (Old Bill was suckin' up to the Tudors big time), but contemporary images of him do not show an ugly, sneering hunch back. Photography would have made Shakespeare's slander impossible.

But, of course, the point here is obsession.

I really like the term "documentia" because it is a kind of forgetting.

I was thinking a lot about this last night.... it's almost like having had just a little too much to drink -- you remember things but it's kind of fuzzy, the context is missing.

After my father died I came across a (what I thought was a) lovely photo of my brother and my dad sitting on my porch, deep in conversation. I sent it to my brother. Brother says "I remember that. We were arguing. He was furious with me because I wouldn't ________."

Obviously I was suffering from documentia.

I had a really weird negative reaction to soz's thread about her daughter's upcoming birthday party which will likely be a scavenger hunt - collecting photos of stuff instead of collecting stuff

this thread is helping putting the feeling into context - feels like they'd be documenting, not experiencing

definitely something I notice with the folks taking handreds of photos every week, and apparently never taking them off of their cameras - just taking photos to take photos

now, I can't say I've printed a photo for 4 or 5 years so I'm not much better, but there's a definite cultural shift going on

Not saying it's better or worse - just feels worse to me.



I suspect most of us here at A2K are just kinda getting old and not keeping up with the times eh.

For what it's worth, it will be collecting photos of experiences -- doing stuff.

There will be some stuff too probably (the list is not finalized).

But will be mostly things like "take a picture of your team arranged so they're spelling a word" (like "hi" or one of the bday girls' names) or "take a picture of yourself with a neighborhood 6th-grade boy."

And mostly it's an excuse to rush around and be silly and spend time together.

Just now reading this original part....

I don't think it's necessarily either/or. I've been very, very happy for my "Sozlet Stories" thread -- I wouldn't say I have a particularly bad memory but there are all kinds of things in there that were GONE (memory-wise) after a year or two. Especially early stuff, when I was suffering from a lack of sleep and general overwhelmedness.

I don't think recording it got in the way of experiencing it. I think if anything it had the opposite effect, of real-time realization that even if I was frustrated or whatever, I had to really cherish what was happening while it was still happening.

And now, sozlet's reading it! She's on page 10 or so, and loving it. Reading it in chunks, not all at once. Not something I ever really expected when I was writing it.

I do definitely see people who have that remove you describe from their actual experiences. I'm trying to think of examples though and actually am coming up empty among people I'm friends with on Facebook for example. I have one friend who posts a TON but she lives a great big life and I think she would laugh, heartily, in your face if you suggested that she is not experiencing life sufficiently because of the documentation. She manages to do both quite well (live a great big life and give a flavor of it in frequent posts).

A caveat: it is not me saying that people are missing out on life because they are recording, although i have commented that i've seen it. I was reporting what the people in the radio interview were saying.

I don't think "Sozlet Stories" qualifies--this is about photos and videos, not things we write. The things we write have been with us literally for thousands of years. This is about cell phone photographs and video recording more than anything. If i failed to make that clear, i do beg the readers' pardon. I'll go look at the first post again.

Ooops, you're right. I misread that part.

To me "recording" can take place as writing or as photography -- they're pretty much interchangeable. But that's not what the first post said.

I think the main difference is temporal -- you can't experience something, then go home and take a picture. (You could paint it, I guess.) You can write about something after the fact (though I did sometimes write things as they were happening).

I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with recording via phone or video -- I do think it can be taken to an extreme.

OK, from the OP: This is the obsessive desire to record, with photos and/or videos, the events of one's life. I don't believe that you ran off, abaondoning Sozlet, so you could write something down, or post it here . . . didja?

It was this that I had a reaction to.

There's no doubt it's my personal reaction. I'm getting quite twitchy about the constant pulling out of cameras/phones.




I'm a traditionalist about some things. Scavenger hunts are apparently one of them. Who knew?

I think they find it more practical? All they would need is their phones instead of gathering and hauling actual items.

They don't all have phones with cameras but enough of them do (or have an iPod Touch with a camera) that there should be enough for one per team.

But I get what you're saying about it being a personal reaction.

the gathering and hauling is what I've always liked about scavenger hunts - that you have to bring in something - or sing something for the judges - or convince someone to go somewhere with you or to give something to you. The 'all they would need' is what makes me go meh.

My favourite scavenger hunt was one where I knit one of the required items and another team-mate crocheted an item (we realized it would be faster to make them than to find them), and I got bonus points for the team for modelling both for the judges while we sang a Bob and Doug McKenzie Christmas song. Hard to photograph that, or to capture the stress of the public singing competition on a video.



One of my younger colleagues does competitive scavenger hunt racing with her BF - the challenge increases as they have more junk to haul around as they run. I love that (and the photos of the results at the end of the day).

Ha, that's awesome.

I like the "sing something for the judges" -- well maybe not sing, as I would be at a disadvantage, but maybe something similar.

Sing at the mall for example, and the ones who get (is it legal to put out tip jars?) -- the most of some indication of approval, win. Or the most points. I was going for each item being worth a certain amount of points, it could be that ___ equals points. (One dollar in the tip jar = 100 points, etc.)

I think there are a lot of ways to get creative with this, still mulling, if you want to put ideas on the thread that would be great. I don't think photographic proof vs. an actual thing makes a big difference creativity-wise though.

I do that with Facebook, mostly the BBC pages.

Me, I rarely photograph family. My wife does most of that at birthdays and Christmas, etc. And then it's just for our consumption.

As for photography in general, I've gotten back to this as a hobby since I've retired, and really enjoy it.

I would never even think to record my own boring life.

oof....this gave me a terribly negative reaction in my gut.

Practical? Or is it "why be bothered, what's the difference?"

The difference is the winner of the scavenger hunt not only finds the object, but figures out how to transport the item to where it needs to go.

Like maybe a big part of the fun is getting that 4 foot long stuffed iguana wearing a yarmulke and lederhosen onto the cross town bus during rush hour.

I've taken a lot of photos. Nothing excessive for a long time, but I treasure a bunch of those I did take as a kid. In the med lab, I took a lot of polaroids of positive findings with the fluorescent mic. Figured I should have gone into electron micro... I just plain liked looking through microscopes. When I caught on to design and looked around more, I took a lot of landscape and urban photos, as well as some personal ones. When I got interested in piazzas, I hung out with my camera in them. On the other hand, I'd skip using it some days. I don't think of any of this as excessive. I'm very visually oriented. In our design and art business I took numerous photos and am glad I did. Also I used my photos as a trigger for some paintings.

Still, the whole thing about photoing what you are eating in what in-restaurant gets me.
I was once interested in doing some pizza paintings, maybe still am - cross between mad craving for the beauty of pizzas and abstract art. So I took some photos of my own, still have those, y'never know.

At the same time, envisioning a restaurant filled with people holding their phones over their meals and friends making faces gets disconcerting. In some ways, I think that alludes to a lack of how to talk about anything.
I am expecting that present popular urge will pass.

(Or people will start grunting.)

I came across this today and it reminded me of this thread.

It's titled "How to spot a first time mother"

This takes it to a whole new level: http://memoto.com/

The memoto camera clips to your shirt and automatically takes 2 photos a minute as you go about your day. Then it organizes your life into a timeline.

I'm looking forward to the memotos of people looking through their memoto times lines in some infinity mirror type thing.

Sounds like the box of photos, presumably family, I came into this past summers. I would bet there are over a thousand photos, and perhaps 15 have some sort of clue on the back side. Some are clearly from before WWII, and many have people in them. Which people? Who knows?

Don't just toss those, I want to see them...