Please Take One

Here's another way I'm going to bring about social change, after people stop saying they have genital heart defects.

Let's say you're part of a large group of people. Let's say you want to preserve the moment in a photograph. Let's say everyone wants a copy.

The thing is, cameras these days are digital. This means that a single camera could be used to take a picture, and that picture could be emailed or put on Flickr or some other photo sharing site. Then everyone could retrieve the photo at his or her leisure, and the group could disperse and not be forced to stand and pose for an hour. This was particularly irritating when I was in PTA, because no one (at least no one in charge) seemed to understand this concept, and we always had a group of about sixty people who were throwing their cameras at the unlucky photographer.

a) A giant group photo isn't really visually interesting, so what's the point? Yeah, it's fun to remember who all was there, but less of this type of activity could possibly be more.
b) By the time everyone's camera gets a chance, we all hate each other and are grimacing at the photographer.
c) Not all cameras work the same. Wait time is increased when the picture taker has to stand there and figure out how the next camera works. Then the crowd parts and waits some more while the owner of the camera worms her way out and gives a quick lesson on how to use it. Then they part again and wait some more while she worms her way back to her spot.
d) If you happen to have two photographers, half the people are looking at one person, and half at the other. This makes an already lame picture even worse.

I saw people doing this bad, bad thing today, only with lots of small children in the group. This is called sadism. It needs to stop. Everyone needs to realize that the film age is over for the point-and-shoot photographer. When they do, I predict feelings of peaceonearthgoodwilltowardmen will increase a hundredfold.