Take More Photos

I wish I’d taken more pictures. With cell phones, photos have become ubiquitous. Social media encourages us to document everything and share, share, share. And that isn’t all bad. I am not talking about selfies. I am talking about non-selfies. I am talking about what goes on in those moments that are frequently undocumented every day.

I was a classroom teacher for more than thirty-three years. About fifteen years ago, one of my colleagues mused that we spend a significant percentage of our life at work and we have no photos of that experience. From that moment, I started bringing my camera (a REAL camera) to school – even when a camera was also built into my phone.

But I wish I’d done it far earlier. I wish I had photos of my early days. A few are in the yearbook, but I have no candids from my classroom, rehearsals, or meetings. I wish I could see the faces of my students in the late 80s and 90s. I wish I had class portraits of those Theatre, Sophomore English, Television, and my early Freshman English classes. I wish I took pictures of the library and the resource center and even the hallways before they were changed and updated. I wish I had documented my everyday life at school – and the wonderful people with whom I shared it.

While the staff changes more slowly than the students, people come and go. Students move through with regularity, but the personnel around me is constantly shifting. Remember that student-teacher? Remember that wonderful quirky and creative kid? I usually remember. I wish I had a picture, too.

What is it about the picture that validates and strengths my memory? Why is it that I can smell and hear and feel the moment so much more vividly when the image is present than when it is just in my head? And I trust my own memory less and less these days.

I treasure the yearbooks. I treasure the old photos that people post on Facebook. They bring me back and they help me remember and cherish the people I adored. I know there is a mosaic of photos out in the world waiting to be woven together. I wish I had more to contribute to it.

I have heard it said that, by taking pictures, the photographer is not fully present in the moment. I disagree. I find that my camera focuses me on the event (yes, I am aware of the double meaning of focus in that sentence). I am more attentive and aware of an experience because I am photographing it. The camera does not pull me away, it pulls me in! I see more clearly, specifically, and exactly when I am taking pictures. It crystalized the experience.

I became my department’s photographer. I documented the events and changes in the school and in my classroom. In addition to my children’s concerts, shows, birthday parties, and games, I also brought my camera for smaller events and day-to-day moments at home and school. I treasure these photos because they bring me back to the way I felt then.

That is the key. While I do want to document the way the old writing center looked or how my daughter decorated her bedroom, what I am really treasuring is how I felt at that time, in that space, with those people. I am affirming that what we did and who we were had enough importance to warrant memorialization and its influence is lasting.

We are worth remembering. We are important enough to hold on to. Our past matters and frames our present. I wish I had learned that earlier.

Little Camera is Watching

Recently, I purchase a dash-cam. I bought it because I had several near accidents with vehicles running red lights and stop signs, and because I was curious – and because it was on sale. It was easy to install and I have only twice looked at any of the videos that it has recorded. For the most part, I forget about it while I am driving. I remember it, however, when I see poor driving.

I think about how my driving is being captured on other people’s dash-cams. While this has changed my driving and, for the most part, I consider myself a conservative and safe driver, I wonder if people would drive differently if they thought that recordings of their driving might turn up online, at the police department, or in other ways. Would some of us slow down?  Would some of us put on a show?

Google introduced Google Glass in 2013 and more recently Google Clip. Both are, for lack of a better term, person cams. They serve the same basic function as my dash-cam, but for human beings. They are a civilian version of the body cams that some police wear.

As you move through your day, people with whom you interact might be recording everything you do and say. The ubiquity of cell phones has that potential as well. Does that change anything?

Let’s try a thought experiment: what if people at your work were recording you? What if, as you dealt with co-workers, clients, customers, and others, someone was secretly recording? How would that affect you? Would it change your behavior?

There are two questions here: one is obvious: how would the chance of being recorded affect one’s behavior? The second is what happens to that recording?

We act differently when there is a camera watching us. Our awareness that our actions will be seen by others, be more “permanent, ” and perhaps be critiqued makes us self-conscious. Our audience changes from known to unknown.

In the world of George Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother looked into the lives of his citizens through a kind of television set. Privacy was almost impossible. The state watched, judged, and punished. While we have no centralized eye in the sky, the idea that an audience is viewing what you are doing in your car, job, or anywhere is unnerving and increasingly likely.

The obvious retort is that, if you have nothing to hide, what is the big deal? Who cares if my actions go viral on Twitter? While there is value in this debate, it is moot. Video of people from cameras meant for security and all manner of personal cams are now out there. It doesn’t matter if you are behaving well or not. The world may see you and that, by itself may be a punishment.

Because the audience may not have context for your actions. The world may not know what your co-worker said to you just a few minutes before you lost your temper. The world may not see the crying person just off the screen. The world may only see the bad lane change, but may not the sick child in the backseat.

Pulling out your cell phone to record an incident is a way to both deescalate and intensify a situation. If you are going to cut in line, I am going to record you doing it and post it. You parked badly; I am going to shame you online. Just like in 1984, fear and shaming do not make a caring community. They do keep people in line.

So how do we deal with the proliferation of cameras and the recordings they produce? First, we increase our civility in public. There is nothing wrong with that. Beating people is wrong regardless of context. Second, we increase our awareness of the presence of cameras. We point them out and notice them wherever we are. If we are being watched, we should be aware of it. Third, we ask questions. Why are cameras here? Who sees the recordings? What is done with those recordings? Who has access to them and for what purposes? We add context wherever possible. If a camera appears, I may need to explain what is going on in more detail. I may need to directly address the camera. I need to think about my new audiences.

I never want to be on a reality TV show, but now we all may have our fifteen minutes of shame and blame. The camera genie is not going back into the bottle. But we must remember that the view into the bottle is often incomplete.