Because much like the wretch who drinks to be happy, the snappers are deluded: they think their photos are creating memories, when in fact they are sabotaging them.
I was one of them. My junk was the real deal. Class-A stuff, the cocaine of the photography world -- the digital SLR. "With this oversized device I felt confident. I felt virile. It made me feel superior to the beaming, giggling amateurs fumbling about with their pathetic phones and small, flaccid point-and-shoots. It took an epiphany for me to kick the habit. I was diving in Thailand, when a whale shark emerged from the gloom. I snapped away at the beast with my underwater apparatus for the few minutes of air I had left, then returned topside to high-five and celebrate this potentially once-in-a-lifetime experience. As I scrolled through the 100-odd pictures I had, I realized: they were all I had. My memories are framed by the 2x2-inch blurry screen of my camera. Not once did I look up to see the fish with my own eyes. " Srini and I saw this in action quite recently--the d'Orsay had loaned a number of gorgeous paintings to Singapore. Other than the art students who were doing studies, there was a whole lot of people consuming the paintings via their cameras. So perhaps the museum didn't provide enough benches, but what happened to just soaking it all in?
