Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Snapshotz on Life

.. going back for a moment to the title of this blogspace ... I want to think again about why I like digital photos so much.
I love the ease of carrying a compact, yet highly effective bit of trickery that can take photos as easy as looking and capture moments in my day with ease.

Today I was in school, and (hooray) had parents' permission to snap away at what was going on - to be used as research data. It was quick and easy as well as unobtrusive to get some really high quality images from the classroom.

This is one thing, the ease and simplicity and to have these images immediately available.

But there is that whole thing that happens where you start to behave like a tourist in your own town - or even workspace. You start to look for photos and to see things diiferently. There are so many photos here and here which I never would have taken with a non - digital camera (analogue??.)

We do this and find find exoticism or novelty in the detail of everyday objects or places, it is a look again culture. I have said all this before, when I was talking about apophenia.
In all of this, I want to reiterate - by obsessively looking for photos all the time, we start to see things that were invisible before. And just as I say this, wow, there is a journal which agrees.
I wonder if this idea is in this book.
We are living in a culture that is re educating itself to take visual culture seriously and making ourselves observe, gaze and take all due regard with much more care.

We have a lot to learn from Persistent Vision

So, Mums and Dads!! Don't worry at your youngsters getting more and more visually literate; it does not mean they are stupid, lazy, or necessarily becoming obese. They could be developing into very skilled readers and interactants with the most quickly developing mode of communication ever ... and Jim would agree I reckon.
Hence, yes I am in favour of digital technology. (In case you were unsure.)

3 comments:

Gareth said...

Jeez, Joolz, just gets better

Joolz said...

Loving you loving my blog.
I love the blog as it makes me think.
I love thinking, I do.

cityB said...

Do you find your living space becoming increasingly more messy / full of junk - because tidy spaces don't make for such interesting photos? If so, hurrah!

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Sheffield, South Yorks, United Kingdom
I am an academic interested in New Literacies, Digital Lifestyles, Informal Online Learning.