Picture, picture

It's inevitable. Expected even. There just has to be a camera to capture every single event, every moment, every breath. Before camera phones and digital cameras, which made life much easier, cameras were hardly commonplace. They were toted around only during landmark occasions - weddings, debuts, anniversaries. In these modern times, with the availability of just about any modern gadget you can think of, every weekend becomes a landmark occasion. The camera makes it possible to turn every meeting into a photo shoot, every place, into a studio. Girls (and guys too) at restaurants, clubs and malls are often snapping away a variety of poses, never to be satisfied with only a single photograph. Self-confessed "cam whores" are on the rise. Then the pictures are splashed everywhere -they're printed immediately or posted online on Friendster.com or Multiply.com for your friends to see. Don't deny this last bit. I won't.

So, why this fascination with pictures? Why the stampede to the shutter when somebody whips out a camera? Why the hundreds of pictures for a single occasion, most of which are practically the same poses? Why take pictures at all?

Well...for one thought, our moments in the world are very precious, yet very fleeting. The wonderful experience of every moment can hardly be appreciated enough by merely living in each moment - it's the existential paradox, how to live more bountifully. Minute by minute, our present transforms into the immediate past, gone forever save for what remains in that very fallible human attribute, the memory. Pictures give us a chance to remember a few of the moments of life, to relive emotions and build memory fragments, which are attached to the photo like a perpetual shadow. More than documentation, pictures allow you to resurrect the past, to keep a moment alive forever.

While this is a great thought - to immortalize moments, as most people intend - I still think that moments shouldn't always be enjoyed through the lens. One shouldn't feel bad when they leave their camera behind. There are people at beaches, tourist sights and landmarks, so bent on collecting "records" (or worse, a video tape), that they miss out on the beauty of where they are. They get so busy shooting pictures and buying souvenirs that they hardly take a moment to just stand still and soak in the spectacular beauty of just living in the moment. We just can't prerecord our life to replay or to sort through images because that way, we're only spectators. The real fun comes from participating in the now, in the moment. Preoccupation with preserving the moment doesn't intensify an experience, it diminishes it.

So hire a photographer...kidding! Do take pictures but please, don't overtake them. Keep your memories of living it up...instead of memories of just taking pictures.

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