There has recently been a lot of debate over the use of cameras and phones, and the obsessive recording behaviour (ORB) at public events. We seem to be addicted to our phones and cameras.
When I go out to events or work on projects specifically to take photographs, I take the necessary equipment and get images to meet my brief. For everything else, I often leave my cameras at home and don't use my phone to capture things. I try to live in that moment. I appear to be part of a minority though.
Why? What are you filming for? Who is going to want to watch these clips ever again?
Take the Notting Hill Carnival in West London: over one million people attend each year. Some of this number are professional photographers, videographers and film crews covering and documenting the events. They are there to capture images and use their skills and expertise to get the best images they could. Then there are those building up their portfolios, or who enjoy photographing events but don't do it as a profession, or are students of photography etc, either way, all have gone specifically with photographing the event in mind. Finally, there are the people who went to the carnival in a social capacity.
The proliferation of the smartphone means that almost everyone has a camera to hand. Obviously, this does have it's benefits, like capturing those spontaneous news moments which would otherwise be missed. But this access to a recording device combined with Social Media (a whole other debate!) has had a strange effect on many people, turning them into compulsive recorders. Camera zombies.
There seems to be a need to record everything. And I mean everything. I have seen people standing, phone aloft at festivals, gigs, museum exhibits, sports events etc…only they weren't watching it directly, they were watching it via the screen held up in front of their face. Or they were randomly filming the mass of people around them - or worse themselves in-situ, with no real subject or purpose other than, I presume, proving that they were there. Why? What are you filming for? Who is going to want to watch these clips ever again?
I saw a man spinning on the spot, his iPhone raised arbitrarily above his head as he tried to film what was going on around him
These issues have been plaguing music and comedy gigs, with more and more performers demanding their audiences stop recording everything and just enjoy themselves. There are very obvious issues with this constant recording: you spend all of your time thinking about the recording you're making, rather than actually experiencing the event itself.
Worse still, the obsessive need to record, perform for the camera and share, to give off the impression that life is incredible every second, is creating a huge mental-health crisis, with anxiety and compulsive behaviour severely impacting society. And, ultimately, all you have afterward is some mediocre (at best) footage of something and a memory of seeing it through the screen.
Back in Notting Hill, and this one example perhaps encapsulates this obsession with recording; I saw a man spinning on the spot, his iPhone raised arbitrarily above his head as he tried to film what was going on around him (a queue for a toilet, a jerk chicken stall some people sitting on the pavement...and about 300 other people all filming each other, filming each other, filming nothing). This footage will not have been great, and probably won't be worth viewing again. If all this footage was available to the state (and after the Edward Snowden revelation's, it could well be) then we'd never need CCTV again.
So why did he do it? Because the technology is there in his hand and he felt the need to prove he was there. To prove he existed. Ironically, everyone around him was doing the same thing, to the extent that nobody seemed to notice anyone else. We've become more invisible through our technology, as we reached the point that everyone is sharing but nobody is looking.
This desire to record is now degrading experiences. It's time to put the phones away and ask yourself: is this really worth recording? What can I really capture that will be better than just enjoying the moment?
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