Snap

Now that everyone has a camera I feel better. At least now, one needs not remember an event at all so long has one has pictures to verify the event's existence. Are memories stored in your head or in a photo album in the cellar? I feel that people have an abject and rather desperate need to collect memories. Who hasn't encountered the old timer at the local pub recounting war stories, love stories - how romantic to have lived such a life! But hang on, couldn't I just collect such a life with my camera, snap by snap, each one a further memory of a full life.

The question is: Is a picture the same as a memory? Is a photo of Big Ben the same as seeing Big Ben? Is it the same as smelling London's streets and hearing its characteristic bustle? Books offer 'Armchair Travel' - a way to visit Guatemala from the comfort of your chair in Atlantic City. But I pay so much to 'see' Guatemala for real? I wonder whether other things could be experienced via the 'armchair' route such as boxing, sex and sky-diving.

With the advent of digital, there has been a flagrant looseness in the use of cameras by the world. In Europe I recall fellow tourists that would almost ‘shield’ themselves from an actual event by holding up their camera and snapping in defense. A stimulus as innocuous as some-one pulling a face was defended with a healthy click. Thankfully the individual snapping was not harmed as she herself did not directly look at the spectacle with her own eyes. She also gained a photo, a memory that will be reflexively shoved down her best friend’s throat as soon as she whips out the dusty album decades from the incident.

In the Louvre, I stood in the room with the Mona Lisa. Crowds of people (more than a hundred) scramble in front of it. I stand at the back, peering for a glimpse of its greatness. There is a cacophonous clicking sound and like gunfire it falls upon the painting. The continuous strobe of flashes was enough to induce a seizure. And for what? A piece of Leonardo? A piece of his fame? No, I am being melodramatic. All those people wanted was a memory of having experienced Great Art, something they can tell their grandkids about some day.