Why I hate photography

I don't normally dislike photography, on the contrary I have a great appreciation for the scenic pictures which appear in National Geographic, as well as a decent liking for photos of Jessica Alba, preferably in a bikini.

What I dislike are constant photography sessions during normal gatherings with friends. The incessant snapping of photos makes any sort of civilized discourse simply impossible to carry out. This situation has been made worse in normal life due to the presence of a camera in the phones of most people nowadays.

Say we have a gathering of 8 people, 4 of which are girls. I will calculate the total amount of pictures that will be taken:

Each girl will take out her camera phone and start snapping. First, they will take a picture of everyone else, which is 7 other people. Multiply that with 4 phones and 28 pictures will be taken. Add some variance here for "yerr, my pic not nice!' after demanding to see the photo, and perhaps another 10 will have to be taken, bringing it to a total of 38 photos.

After this, or perhaps before, some self-photography will take place. As the feat of holding the camera to take a photo of oneself is not an easy one to master, most girls will need 5 tries or so to get some decent pictures. Some girls have mastered this dark art, however such mastery often comes with an increased desire to take photos of oneself, so it ends up pretty much the same anyway. So 5 multiplied with 4 is 20 photos.

58 shots now.

However taking single pictures is not alone. Photos which involve a combination of people have to be taken in order to immortalize the gathering! (yea right) Therefore say pictures of 2 people together have to be taken, the total number of permutations of 2 among 8 people is 8 times 7, so 56. Now not all of them will take together, so maybe half of this number will be taken - 28.

28 plus 58 shots equal 86 shots, and counting.

Now, we must not forget combinations of 3 and 4 people. From my observation fewer of such shots are taken, perhaps 10 or so. The trouble here is that if one person in the shot feels that she does not look nice the shot has to be retaken, which is a very high probability occurrence. Moreover when several girls are facing the same camera a battle for position starts, which I call the "war of the small head". Basically everyone tries to lean back to make their face look smaller, which is not easy to do as everyone is doing the same. In the end an uneasy equilibrium is reached.

96 shots now, 10 of which took a rather long time.

One would now think that one could enjoy food at peace, but! They even take shots while you are eating. So for some people they have to stop and smile, wasting even more time.

So in one meal, including the final group shot, which is the only one I can tolerate, I estimate over a hundred photographs are taken. This is for a gathering of 8; if the number of attendees of the female gender are more the count can be even more frightful.

Lest anyone say I single out the girls for ire, I dislike another breed even more - the wannabe professional photographer, which is usually a guy. He carries an enormous DSLR and snaps photos of everyone in a vaguely stalkerish manner. The flash is incredibly annoying when one is trying to eat and make polite conversation but does he bother? No! I remember it was once considered rude to snap a photo of someone without asking first, but I suppose that piece of etiquette has died out with the dodos.

I wish he would go to Africa and snap lions feasting. If he flashes them enough the outcome might be very pleasant (for me at least).

Really with the double attack of the camera and the smartphone, the art of conversation is tottering out on its last legs. I rue the day when nobody remembers that people used to TALK at dinner, and the skill of chatting goes the same way as the skill of striking two pieces of flint together to make fire.