I heard somewhere that if we leave our homes, we can expect to be caught on security tape at least seven times.
Nearly every person with a cell phone has the ability to capture our images in all settings.
The internet makes it possible for our images to be circulated world wide.
There can be no expectation of privacy.
News organizations take full advantage of this free for all as they encourage everyone with a cell phone to upload the news as it happens.
The potential for abuse far outweighs the advantage of having instant access to digital documentation. Ask any person in rehab who claims a sexual addiction problem. Take a look in your spam folder. Child exploitation and pornography are available to anyone claiming to be eighteen years old. Blackmail and old fashioned bullery are more examples.
I seldom use my cell phone camera, I prefer my digital cameras and have on at least one occasion, upset the management of an office supply chain store. My targets are not people, I prefer angles, lighting, interestingly chaotic displays, wildlife, scenery and family members.
I am a people watcher. I watch them unfolding from cars, gossiping in bookstores, and mothers unraveling while the children take over the shopping trip. I watch. I listen, too. Sometimes, I pull out a notebook but the camera stays put.
I collect snippets oconversation, moodswings, nervous laughter and surprise. I notice settings, scenes, context and how it enhances or distracts from the human situation. The setting seldom reflects the topic.
Rear Window is one of my favorite movies. The character, a photographer, played by Jimmy Stewart does not photograph the lives framed by neighborhood windows. He watches, listens, imprisoned in a plaster cast and oppressive heat and from isolation becomes intimately involved in his neighbors’ lives.
I prefer simple observation and reflection to documenting my life through the viewing square on my cell phone. I don’t have to remain true to the experience if I commit the images to my notebook and my memory. In the recalling and retelling I can Tell it Big.
Is it a bad thing to admit to eaves dropping? Is it eavesdropping at all when there can be no expectation of privacy? Is my act of observation as much a crime as using a cell phone to capture images? Where is the line? How do we know we have crossed it?
Cell-Phonery-Peeping -Tommery is a lazy way of eaves dropping. While a picture paints a thousand words, my collection of conversations, scenes, and situations can recombine in a thousand ways to form thousands of images, each different from the next.
Live life with all your senses. See it in context unencumbered by an LCD screen. Smell it. Hear it. Feel it physically and emotionally. Make notes. Mull life over and recast the characters, change up the scenery, give it a back story and imagine the mother spanking that child or buying his silence one aisle away.
Feel free to post an observation of your own. Change the names and don’t post anything harmful. Thanks for visiting and check back soon.