I've been selling a lot on craigslist recently. As such, I've been taking a lot of pictures of my stuff.
And oddly, I've been noticing that I feel slightly unfulfilled, even uncomfortable, when I take a photo that doesn't make it to Flickr. I don't know when this happened, but posting has made the photo real--like if it's not posted here, it didn't happen. That bothers me.
-- Slavin added this photo to his favorites. (90 months ago)
adamgreenfield 89 months ago | reply
Happens to me too, and also weirds me out. They're like in uncommentable, unlinkable nonspace.
See? Our perceptions of what is meet and proper are already being transformed by ubiquitous informatics. ; . )
bobulate 89 months ago | reply
Someone should write a book about that. :)
bobulate 89 months ago | reply
Update: I've sold the monitor. Now the photograph becomes even more valuable. If I hadn't photographed it, I would risk forgetting the monitor altogether.
Odd. Transformed from nonspace into something that I can catalog in my memory.
pauldwaite 89 months ago | reply
Yeah, that's definitely not healthy :)
I can only suggest less time taking photos, and less time on Flickr :) Or maybe print some out and hang them on your wall? Maybe then photos won't be real unless they're hanging in your place. Oh, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, etc.
jetaime 84 months ago | reply
Gosh, I get that too. If it's not recorded SOMEWHERE (even if only in a paper journal hidden in my room), it never happened. Quite the phenomenon...
pauldwaite 84 months ago | reply
Now that's interesting. I've had lots of memorable experiences that I have no tangible record of, but I don't feel like they didn't happen.
bobulate 84 months ago | reply
pauldwaite said:
I do too. Certainly, there are memories from prior to my photo-taking days that are still quite powerful. (Although as I get older, there are fewer of them...)
But there's something about documenting a memory through a photograph that allows me to rely on the physical (or digital) object instead of my memory. I feel free to "forget" that event/thing because I know it is recorded somewhere. I'm off the hook.
So, if that photo never gets uploaded to Flickr, it's archived in some dusty folder deep in my hard drive where I won't look again. Which is starting to feel the same as if it never happened.
pauldwaite 84 months ago | reply
Sure: I was talking more about jetaime's comment than the photo-specific idea you put in your note.
Personally, for photos, I use iPhoto, and have my screensaver set to display random photos from my "Good Enough" collection. So I'll always look at them again :)
Interesting that you say documenting a memory with a photograph allows you to "forget" it. Photographs might help one recall the emotions and smells and stuff that went along with an experience, but only if they're still there in your head somewhere. A photograph only shows how the light bouncing off an event focused through your lens, after all.