Robert Gumpert is among those rare photojournalists who seek to promote ways of looking at the world through the lens of conscientiousness and compassion. Every so often he sends out one of his thought-provoking PDF postcards that addresses an overlooked social concern. "Tools and Machines" speaks to how simple innovations can have huge impacts on society, the environment, and even the way we look. In this postcard, Gumpert speaks to the truth when he writes:
Who among us hasn't had the feeling that the more time-saving devices we have -- washing machines, mobiles, computers, cars -- the less time we seem to have and the more hectic our lives are.
We have created for ourselves a culture of convenience for convenience sake. Everything, it would seem, appears packaged for us in a way that offers to make our lives simpler, faster, and cheaper.
Digital photography, especially camera phones, are a perfect example of how enamored we have become of technology without considering the implications of such a dependence upon it.
So where is this all taking us as a culture?
Natali Del Conte, a writer for PCMagazine, reported last week on a conference that is looking into future digital photographic markets aimed primarily at women, especially mothers with easy-to-use digital cameras and camera phones. Del Conte observers.
The word of the day at Digital Imaging was "personal." "Digital imaging is personal," or "the experience needs to be personal," or "the devices need to be personal." But the ecosystem has not completely built itself out yet. With so many photo sharing sites with such different features and subscription models, everyone seems to be waiting to see what will stick with consumers.
But does digital photography really make things more personal? I am not so sure. Unquestionably, it is easier to fill up our flash card with images, but what do most of these images communicate -- what do they day about us and our world?
There may be a push in the market to make devices more personal, but without an understanding of how our images construct preferable and often times imagined social realities that distract us from arriving at really deeper intimacies with ourselves and the world we live, the whole thing appears to be, once again, about making money.