Digital age/documenting our lives

Dangerou-Dave

Has anyone ever considered the impact the digital age (more specifically, digital photos/massive amounts of images/very high resolution) will have on how are children will view us? I don't mean this in a negative sense at all. I just look at my digital picture folder, and wonder what it would be like if my dad's younger days had been so well and vividly documented in this way.

On another tangent, assuming this media does last, what will I think looking back at these images, of a young me on a couch with 3 other friends smoking a bowl at 3am, when I am 40? 50? 80 years old?

I dunno, just looking at the albums I have from my days as a 20'something compared to similar albums from previous generations...there's something much more vivid here, and much more unique.

MAINER 3.0

We are certainly the digital generation. I don't know if that's a bad thing, or a good thing yet. It's an interesting contrast - people sitting for hours at their computer, mixed with an internet culture which demands they be photogenic.

How will we balance this as human beings?

Deusfaux

i take pictures of myself and things like that fairly often just for keeping records

when im old it'll be appreciated (by me)

ToadTheMushroom

I dont like photography, or hiliday snaps, or a photo album.

I feel it lessens the importance of my memories, so that I can forget stuff because 'Ive got a hard copy on my camera'.

I'd rather people didnt see where we went on holiday, and didnt get to have a look at that freaky bird I saw on the clifftop, or didnt see my friends I met over there or any of that third hand evidence for experiences.

In the same way people showing me their holiday photos bores me so much, or their childhood photos. I keep thinking 'yeah, but I wasnt there, so why do I care, Id rather experience it myself without knowledge'

It's sad that I consider photography as a toold for documentation, eg 'This is exactly what this spider looks like' rather than experiences, such as something you did.

Oden

I hate when people pose for photos

If Im taking a photo of you and I didnt ask for you to pose dont fucking pose it doesn't look natural especially if we are at a party or something

MAINER 3.0

Oden wrote:

I hate when people pose for photos

If Im taking a photo of you and I didnt ask for you to pose dont fucking pose it doesn't look natural especially if we are at a party or something

I find that most people prefer the angle, "above and from the left while I make my special face."

bongi

the opposite of not posing is what my dad does where he thinks he is all clever taking photos over his shoulder but they are all shitty and he covets them like a retard

Dynagrip

I am going to be the most awesome Digital Patriarch EVER

SporkAndrew

ToadTheMushroom wrote:

It's sad that I consider photography as a toold for documentation, eg 'This is exactly what this spider looks like' rather than experiences, such as something you did.

To me it's basically the opposite. I use photography as an aid to the memory.. I've got pictures of bands during gigs and I'll look back and be able to remember what song was playing, how crushed I was, how hot it was, everything.

Looking back through my holiday photos I take pictures of the most random stuff, but every single photo sparks off a chain reaction of memories that I just wouldn't be able to remember on my own. The best example is that I have pictures from Canada of a block of frozen chilli, which on it's own doesn't make much sense. But seeing the picture reminds me of us forgetting to take the chilli out of the cooler-box until far too late so we had to tide ourselves over with marbled cheese and crackers. When the chilli finally defrosted enough to start to cook it was about 11 at night and no-one was hungry. I wouldn't be able to remember the conversations about wasted chilli, chillisicles, picking it up and throwing it at the neighbour's tent because they had really loud, bad music on, throwing it into the road and blocking the path of the lowrider that was doing the rounds.. But because I've got the picture I can make the memory connections.

I'm lucky enough to have a photographic memory but it only comes into play when it's jogged into life through a trigger.

I guess I'm just wired that way.

ToadTheMushroom

Oh I fully accept that way or working. In some ways thats all pictures do, jog your memory.

What I dont like is someone showing me them sitting on a beach or something and going 'this is us on holiday'.

Well so what. I know what you look like and I know what a beach looks like already. I hate that kind of photography.

Deusfaux

Oden wrote:

I hate when people pose for photos

If Im taking a photo of you and I didnt ask for you to pose dont fucking pose it doesn't look natural especially if we are at a party or something

a-fucking-men

big pet peeve of mine

MAINER 3.0

I only take pictures of me and my girlfriend having sex



what.

Oden

Deusfaux wrote:

Oden wrote:

I hate when people pose for photos

If Im taking a photo of you and I didnt ask for you to pose dont fucking pose it doesn't look natural especially if we are at a party or something

a-fucking-men

big pet peeve of mine

I have thousands of photos where people are pouting or tilting there head or doing some other stupid shit

then you get to ones that were taken on the sly and its like reliving that night in a single photo

SporkAndrew

ToadTheMushroom wrote:

What I dont like is someone showing me them sitting on a beach or something and going 'this is us on holiday'.

Oh I hate that too. Posed pictures have always annoyed me. I'd much rather see the sunset in the background..

bongi

i don't tend to take photos at parties

MAINER 3.0

I only party (read: drink) by myself.

Someone told me that's a red-flag for being an alcoholic so I threw up in his lap.

Dynagrip

MAINER 3.0 wrote:

I only party (read: drink) by myself.

Someone told me that's a red-flag for being an alcoholic so I threw up in his lap.

I quit drinking after I realized what I was doing.

MAINER 3.0

Dynagrip wrote:

MAINER 3.0 wrote:

I only party (read: drink) by myself.

Someone told me that's a red-flag for being an alcoholic so I threw up in his lap.

I quit drinking after I realized what I was doing.

I quit smoking pot a while ago and just switched vices, sadly enough.

Deusfaux

Oden wrote:

Deusfaux wrote:

Oden wrote:

I hate when people pose for photos

If Im taking a photo of you and I didnt ask for you to pose dont fucking pose it doesn't look natural especially if we are at a party or something

a-fucking-men

big pet peeve of mine

I have thousands of photos where people are pouting or tilting there head or doing some other stupid shit

then you get to ones that were taken on the sly and its like reliving that night in a single photo

the worst pictures are those you see of teenage girls/young women especially in their bedrooms they might have a board just plastered with 100's of pictures of herself and her friends in dozens of bars and at parties. every single picture is dead on with the brightest flash possible, and just arms around each other posing and smiling


yeah thats not real life, so stop trying to remember it that way

Oden

I didn't know you could change the brightness of the flash

Deusfaux

lots of cameras have different types of flash, like area fill vs highlight and such

you know what i meant though, the flash that is on the subjects couldnt be any brighter

not saying there is a control on these girl's silly little compacts to adjust flash brightness

SporkAndrew

Deusfaux wrote:

the worst pictures are those you see of teenage girls/young women especially in their bedrooms they might have a board just plastered with 100's of pictures of herself and her friends in dozens of bars and at parties. every single picture is dead on with the brightest flash possible, and just arms around each other posing and smiling

My girlfriend's sister has something exactly like that. All the way up the stairs into her room are thousands of photos of the same few people clumped together, staring at you with blank, red eyes in the same formation.

Oden: Whilst on most cameras you can't adjust the brightness of the flash you could at least use some card or something to bounce the light off something else before hitting your face. Or just turn the flash off.

Oden

Deusfaux wrote:

not saying there is a control on these girl's silly little compacts to adjust flash brightness

no that is exactly what I thought

I have a silly little compact because Im not a photographer

infact I mostly just use the camera on my phone which is 2mp

Dangerou-Dave

Deusfaux wrote:

Oden wrote:

Deusfaux wrote:

Oden wrote:

I hate when people pose for photos

If Im taking a photo of you and I didnt ask for you to pose dont fucking pose it doesn't look natural especially if we are at a party or something

a-fucking-men

big pet peeve of mine

I have thousands of photos where people are pouting or tilting there head or doing some other stupid shit

then you get to ones that were taken on the sly and its like reliving that night in a single photo

the worst pictures are those you see of teenage girls/young women especially in their bedrooms they might have a board just plastered with 100's of pictures of herself and her friends in dozens of bars and at parties. every single picture is dead on with the brightest flash possible, and just arms around each other posing and smiling


yeah thats not real life, so stop trying to remember it that way

Haha yes exactly. I'll show you my favorite photo from an amazingly fun night. It's not in focus, nor is it pleasing to the eye, but it captures my half-drunken/high stupid ass self with my best friends being young and dumb. (I believe we found a box of glow sticks at a dollar store or something like that...)

Air

i dont really take pictures

Meiz

I'm planing on taking a walk in the summer to show you all the odd things I've been snickering at in my town.

There's this one place that has a sign saying "TAEKWONDO WTF" with some Asian characters and a little dude doing a jump kick.

Talon

pictures become invaluable after a person you know has died

it's a very terrible lesson to learn at this age

darkdemon

You stand there with a camera, say "CLICK!" and turn a light off/on really quick?

Hunter

Talon wrote:

pictures become invaluable after a person you know has died

it's a very terrible lesson to learn at this age

Just take pictures of her corpse and jerk off to them. It's almost the same.

Talon

Hunter wrote:

Talon wrote:

pictures become invaluable after a person you know has died

it's a very terrible lesson to learn at this age

Just take pictures of her corpse and jerk off to them. It's almost the same.

also yeah, if they ever ask you if you want to see the crime scene photos, just say no



sweet almighty christ just say no

Air

Talon wrote:

Hunter wrote:

Talon wrote:

pictures become invaluable after a person you know has died

it's a very terrible lesson to learn at this age

Just take pictures of her corpse and jerk off to them. It's almost the same.

also yeah, if they ever ask you if you want to see the crime scene photos, just say no



sweet almighty christ just say no

what did the guys put her clothes back on after or somethin

im suprised they would go to the effort

Janson

I take photos as a reminder because I have an atrocious memory, and it helps to jog them, like SporkAndrew says. I'm not so fond of taking photos of people, though.

I do update my journal quite often, but that's mainly for myself. I like to go back and read it occasionally.

lostwords

I used to love taking pictures of friends and moments. Then I graduated college and became a boring working stiff, and the rate of my picture-taking dropped greatly. Either my life has become much more boring or I've moved past the point in my life where I want to remember every single little thing when I get older or something.

Druhim

I find it interesting that we act like these digital documents will still be "readable" thirty or forty years from now. With a hard print of a photograph, you've got a more or less permanent record as long as you protect it from damage and decay. With a digital record there are so many things that can go wrong from the file becoming corrupted to damage to the drive. The biggest issue as I see it though is that there's a real risk of this media becoming unreadable after a few decades simply because the software that created/reads the media probably won't exist any more at some point in the future or if it does exist, probably won't run on whatever operating systems are in use at the time. I believe that 40 or 50 years from now, possibly much sooner, there will be a widespread loss of documents due to this effect.

Wevs

I like photos of other people taking photos.

Janson

Druhim wrote:

I find it interesting that we act like these digital documents will still be "readable" thirty or forty years from now. With a hard print of a photograph, you've got a more or less permanent record as long as you protect it from damage and decay. With a digital record there are so many things that can go wrong from the file becoming corrupted to damage to the drive. The biggest issue as I see it though is that there's a real risk of this media becoming unreadable after a few decades simply because the software that created/reads the media probably won't exist any more at some point in the future or if it does exist, probably won't run on whatever operating systems are in use at the time. I believe that 40 or 50 years from now, possibly much sooner, there will be a widespread loss of documents due to this effect.

I guess it depends how dedicated you are. I'm quite happy to discard my memories after a few years - regularly throwing away drawings, school work, photos of old friends, photos of me as a young'un etc., but so long as you keep on top of your data, it can quite easily be transferred as technology changes.

potatoe

pictures can be a blessing and a curse

where it is great to have pictures of happy memories to make you smile, those same pictures can destroy you if you stumble upon them when you aren't prepared...such as accidently coming across pictures of an ex that you can't get over

babyeatingjesus

I hope the entire internet reads their own blogs and myspaces in 10-15 years and commits mass suicide.

Ragix

potatoe wrote:

pictures can be a blessing and a curse

where it is great to have pictures of happy memories to make you smile, those same pictures can destroy you if you stumble upon them when you aren't prepared...such as accidently coming across pictures of an ex that you can't get over

So what did you do when she saw the picture?

Slungsolow

Druhim wrote:

I find it interesting that we act like these digital documents will still be "readable" thirty or forty years from now. With a hard print of a photograph, you've got a more or less permanent record as long as you protect it from damage and decay. With a digital record there are so many things that can go wrong from the file becoming corrupted to damage to the drive. The biggest issue as I see it though is that there's a real risk of this media becoming unreadable after a few decades simply because the software that created/reads the media probably won't exist any more at some point in the future or if it does exist, probably won't run on whatever operating systems are in use at the time. I believe that 40 or 50 years from now, possibly much sooner, there will be a widespread loss of documents due to this effect.

nah, legacy data is always kept in mind when innovating new software. there is no way software would be at fault for the loss of digital data on a massive scale. hardware corruption is a possibility since that is a single point of failure... but software can always be recreated, emulated or equally stored with the medium it uses.

potatoe

Slungsolow wrote:

Druhim wrote:

I find it interesting that we act like these digital documents will still be "readable" thirty or forty years from now. With a hard print of a photograph, you've got a more or less permanent record as long as you protect it from damage and decay. With a digital record there are so many things that can go wrong from the file becoming corrupted to damage to the drive. The biggest issue as I see it though is that there's a real risk of this media becoming unreadable after a few decades simply because the software that created/reads the media probably won't exist any more at some point in the future or if it does exist, probably won't run on whatever operating systems are in use at the time. I believe that 40 or 50 years from now, possibly much sooner, there will be a widespread loss of documents due to this effect.

nah, legacy data is always kept in mind when innovating new software. there is no way software would be at fault for the loss of digital data on a massive scale. hardware corruption is a possibility since that is a single point of failure... but software can always be recreated, emulated or equally stored with the medium it uses.

i keep all my digital pictures stored on a series of punch cards