this picture showing the fanatic devotion of tween girls in new york to the band tokio hotel appeared in the new york times a couple of days ago. while the sheer joy expressed on their faces is hilarious if not slightly painful, i am more intrigued by all the cameras.
am i the only one who finds it bizarre that after the proliferation of small, affordable digital cameras and cell phones with cameras that everyone now takes pictures with the camera at arm's length? i would venture to say that even just 10 years ago people were still holding the viewfinder of analog cameras up to their eyes in order to take a picture. if not you were either severely intoxicated, doing something 'avant-garde' or just plain weird.
now i can appreciate the affordability (after the camera is bought there aren't really any costs, unless you want to print the pictures) and perfectionism inducing (why take one shot and pray it comes out after developing the film when you can take 53 shots and delete most of them on the spot?) that has come from digital photography, but i still find it very odd looking when people are taking pictures with the camera or (even odder) cell phone held feet away from their eyes.
i know there are high quality digital cameras that still have the traditional viewfinder but for all those novices and tween girls, shots at arm's length is apparently where it's at.
1 comment:
I remember after Pope John Paul II died there was a photo in the New York Times of his funeral procession. Countless people were crowded around, many of them taking pictures on their cameras and phones. I can vividly picture this one man holding his cell phone at arm's length, snapping a picture of the dead Pope--I was really struck by the seeming contradiction between High Church ritual and the excesses and crassness of mass culture.
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