kurt

Infinite focus through a moblog

Imaging technology has been redefining our social landscape for 150 years (if you exclude illustration, painting, sculpture, dance...) in the way that we communicate ideas, share experiences and interrupt our lives.

The more available the technology of imaging has become, the more people have adapted to it by using pictures to shape their experiences. Not everyone has become a photographer of course, but so many people now expect the interruption of the camera: we pose, we snap, we print, we post and we share. It seems strange not to take a picture at a birthday party or at the Grand Canyon or at any other significant event (socially, emotionally, politically... there are many valid types of "significance").

We might wonder: does the image, functioning as a type of external memory, take such priority, due to our instinctive deference to it when referencing an event and our intuitive trust both in its veracity and its longevity, that it smothers and represses all other mnemonic record of our past?

It's an important question; one which I have no desire to answer. Instead I want people to think about how consumer digital imaging will change the focus of our shots. My guess is that there will be more digital cameras phones than digital cameras soon. A quick google search ("number of digital camera phones") revealed this article:

http://www.zonezero.com/editorial/abril03/april.html

The claim of digital camera phones exceeding digital cameras in 2004 is not supported with a reference but it is easy to believe.

So how will digital camera phones change the imaging landscape for the technologically empowered?

Of course I am only guessing/inferring but:

People will hesitate less to take pictures. Digital storage is cheap and fast (almost instantaneous perceptually). So the sheer number of images taken per capita will rise.

Sharing will increase. This is a no-brainer. If I can take a picture and in a few button clicks send it to my website for all to see... well why not? Moblogging is a fad for the tech elite at the moment but that will change within a year or two. How will this change the way that we look at each other? Why should you tell me about an event when you can just reference me to your moblog?

The subjects of the pictures will change! This is the most interesting thing to me. The imaging devices on phones have fixed lenses with very wide angles of view and this will move the photographer closer to his/her subject. They also have huge depth of field and really great minimum focus distance (also due to the focal length of the lens). Instant feedback and virtually unlimited storage remove a lot of hesitation in the mind of the photographer. And perhaps most importantly: the ability to send the image to anyone, anywhere instantly is the ultimate motivation for a photographer to take a picture at an opportunity that would have otherwise been ignored.

Maybe we'll all start taking picture of cigarette butts...