Photos

I log into Facebook. “Girls night out + XYZ’s birthday ” – 61 new photos. Night lights, dressed up girls, some club photos, XYZ is blowing into a cake, and a few photos later, his face is smeared with so much cake he resembles the cookie monster. OK, next item on news feed: “Europe!” – 197 new photos. Do I bother looking through? Hell no.  More photos, more photos, more photos. I lose interest. 

Since when did photos become so unappealing? I realize how few photos I have been in, and further, how few I have clicked in the last few years. 

I remember being fifteen and going on a three day school trip as part of my tenth class, my first time ever away from home with anyone other than my family. This was 2002, and my parents gave me the camera with a new roll in it. I could take up to 36 photos, they said. I have to say, I used the 36 very judiciously. To this day, in a corner shelf in my sweet warm home in Mumbai, sits that album. Same story with my school farewell, and all other memorable occasions from my childhood and teenage. When I visited home earlier this year, I entertained a couple of school friends at home. The first thing we did was pull out those albums and talk about each one of those photos, each one a story of its own.

A photograph. What a beautiful invention. A moment so beautiful, we attempt to capture it in time, for it is worth looking at over and over again, in delicious melancholy and nostalgia, or even simple pure joy. I hate how digital photos and phone cameras have reduced this beautiful idea to a near joke. I realize now, the day I stopped caring for photos was the day I got a phone with a camera. I simply wait for friends to take photos, knowing well that I can take it from them anytime. And the emotional value of a photo is not really a relevant concept anymore, mainly because of the excessive supply of almost everyone’s photos on social networking sites. 

I wish there were fewer photos, and more meaningful ones in this world. I wish the idea of a photo would not be how ‘facebook worthy’ it is.