Photography now has become a commodity now, unlike how it was about 10 years ago. There’s a camera in everyone’s pocket these day. Shoot, upload and share seems to be the latest mantra. I know I’m not that old in the field myself, but that’s beside the point. A retrospective look at recent concerts and weddings have made me think : Have we started preferring images to the experience?

I’ve been to quite a few weddings of late. Every one of them has relatives getting in front of everyone trying to take a snap. There’s a few braves ones even attempting to video tape the whole event. Some lazy ones send their kids to do the dirty work. Like really? why can’t you just ask the couple for a digital copy since its so easy to share them these days?

Why get in the way of everyone else. Why not be ‘in’ the moment, instead of trying to capture it? Why not understand that there are professionals there to do just that. This does not apply to those just wanting one pic for memory. That’s fine. It’s directed at the one’s who try covering the whole ceremony.

Then theres concerts. Your favourite band/artist is on stage, playing the tune you’ve been listening to years. And what do you do? Pull out phone or camera and video tape every song! Again, I can understand if its just 1 song or a few pictures, but the whole concert? Like really? Why waste so much money on tickets, stand in long queues to take a crappy video from 1 mile away?

Camera’s and cellphone’s are still ok, until one decides to bring out their iPads and tablets. My goodness. It’s almost a secondary monitor for all those standing behind them! Ridiculously shaky, awful audio, and psychedelic visuals. Why not keep it at home and use it to watch the video they release officially later?

So what if you weren’t  featured on it? You were there, having a ball of a time. Relive it your mind, not badly captured pixels.