Monday, December 27, 2010

Snapshots and Photo Sharing, to an introvert

What this introvert thinks of snapshots of people, and of photo sharing without permission of the subjects.

I do not like snapshots of people. I don't want to see them. They almost always give a false impression, and in fact they work against real communication. They are just a "chance" view of someone taken in a split second of a person's life, usually in a situation in which the subject is socially under pressure.

Snapshots can ruin your idea of who the person they photograph "is" for some time, if not forever, and make communication with that person awkward, uncomfortable, and unproductive.

To see people every day isn't the same thing as seeing snapshots of them. When you are around people every day you become so used to their being there you (normally) don't notice their surface appearance anymore; you see what you need to see, which usually includes very little of their superficial appearance (whereas snapshots are all about superficial appearance) - and you communicate with the person you "know" (or believe) they are -- not based on their physical appearance at any certain time from just one angle, at just one time of their day, at just one time of the day (morning, noon, night), in certain lighting conditions, in certain social conditions, from certain viewpoints, etc., etc. You are communicating with the private person inside, the individual, and what I see as the "real" person, or as close to "real" as you're going to get.

An introvert values highly his or her private life, and the private lives of others, because it is only within "private" lives that they can relate to people in a really personal and truly communicative and helpful way. One has to not see the other superficially, and especially not see them in snapshots (either visual or in words, but especially visual as those are so distracting), as it is so easy to base one's ideas of another person on them, even knowing that they show only a fleeting and usually very awkward (and false) glimpse but not the real person.

Note that just because a person is an introvert doesn't mean that they do not like other people - Not at all! Some may, some may not, or they may love some and hate some, but introversion has nothing to do with that. It does mean, however, that their relationships with other people are different, as they wish to communicate with the "real" person who lives underneath the false impressions given by "snapshots" of any nature.

So, unless you really dislike a person who happens to be an introvert, please do not publish snapshots of them until or unless they have seen the pictures and have given permission for you to do so. Also, please do not expect them to enjoy looking at snapshots of others, as they do not like being bombarded with these awkward and unreal images that strongly influence and often ruin their opinion of the people in the pictures as those images "freeze" our ideas of who they are.

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DEFINITION OF SNAPSHOTS: I should define "snapshots" though I think most people would realize that I mean photographs taken by ordinary people who are not real artists (and when I say "artists" I include photographers with the sensitivity and aims of artists). Snapshots are the kinds of pictures that you see all the time (because people want you to look at them...every one of them) that all look pretty much alike. The person who takes snapshots just aims the camera toward people they want to have a picture of without considering any of the principles of composition except one: get the subject in there somewhere.



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"I don't know what impression you might have of the way I live. I live in a quiet place. I do not live as a hermit, though other people would prefer it if I did."
-- Daniel Day-Lewis (born 1957), English actor