No Pictures Please
by Jennifer Halpern

Ask yourself the following question: why do people love pictures? 

Take the answers you came up with, which are probably the same answers that other people came up, and believe me when I say that this is also probably how I feel.  So let us put to rest the idea that pictures are great in many ways, and I don’t ever mean to say that those reasons are not valid.  Now I will start to point out why taking pictures can make me run and hide away while mumbling scornful words under my breath.

This point of view was brought about while I was exploring the Middle East with a tour group.  At first, the overwhelming newness of it all made all our pointer fingers trigger-happy.  But there came a time in my mind when I realized that being preoccupied with capturing the moment through my camera lens expelled my ability to experience things in what I consider to be a natural way.

The difference between a natural experience and an artificial one is much like the difference between living through an experience and telling a story.  On one side you end up with a memory, and on the other you have a picture to accompany a story.  When you boil it all down, what is a memory anyway?  Is it just a story that your mind records, and then tells you when you try to remember?  And is it ever really accurate?  Studies say no, it’s not.  So is there a big difference between fabricating a version of the story and creating it naturally?  I suppose not.  But the point I hope to get across to you is that it’s not about the memory at all; it’s not about remembering the past, or preparing for the future.  You guessed it; it’s about the NOW!

When you do something, travel to a new place, for example, do you do so because you can tell people you went there, or because you want to breathe that different air, hear the new sounds, and enjoy the pleasure of seeing with a set of fresh eyes?  My theory is that if you are caught up in taking pictures, which is an act to capture the past and prepare for the future, then you are missing out on the present.  I recall the first moment that I finally stepped on the high point of the ruins sight on my trip to the Middle East.  I looked out over the beautiful landscape and thought, “I am having a wonderful time being here, and this experience is just for me, and for right now.”  I am certain that at this point in time I don’t remember the right colour of the sky, or the people who were there, or how steep the trail really was.  But the feeling that I got from the freedom of living totally in the present made an impression on my soul.

Maybe it is a greedy and futile pursuit to try to record things.  Greedy because you are trying to take something from nature, and futile because you only get a two dimensional illustration of the scenery.  Greed and futile may seem like harsh words, but they have just the right amount of bite I need to express the feeling of repulsion I get because of the degree to which pictures can take away from a moment.  In a word, it is artificial.  And (to sign off with hint of what my next editorial might be about) to make yet another thing in our lives artificial (that is, memory) is a sad thing for me.

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