The world is shifting towards digital in every aspect of our lives. We have kettles controlled by our phones and our conversations are facilitated by the internet. It is this digital apocalypse that I wanted to address today as I explore the impact social media has had on physical photographs and if they are worth keeping at all. Although a slightly different topic to that I usually cover, and more opinion based, I just wanted to express some of my thoughts.
Technology has become ubiquitous and old traditions often become novelties as a result – one of those traditions being photographs. I’m not talking the digital kind you upload to Instagram; I mean a tangible photograph that you can hold in your hands. They have become pretty much extinct which is why I wanted to explore their worth in today’s digital world.
Physical Photos
When I was younger, I remember my parents printing almost every photo they took on their digital cameras. We had piles of photos from every holiday or occasion and I had, naturally, gawked at them all. Now, I honestly couldn’t tell you anyone around my age (other than myself,) that owns a collection of physical photos, like a photo album or scrapbook and I think it is such a shame.
Personally, I find that printing photos encourages you to interact with the photo, the memory, the moment. They act as reminders of things we want to remember and can be beautiful to look back on a moment I clearly wanted to capture. That’s why I have gone through every photo taken on every device I have ever owned and sorted through everything I wanted to print. 700 physical photographs later and I am so glad that I did.
I think that is the reason why, as cliche as they have become, I enjoy the fact that Polaroid cameras have come back into fashion. The novelty of having just one hard copy of a photograph, that you can’t edit, share or choose between is unmatched by the digital capabilities of our phones. I love that. I can’t however ignore that this retired idea has come back into fashion thanks to their social media aesthetic.
Digital World
What has caused this decline in physical photographs though? This aesthetically pleasing dream is far from reality in our digital world and I personally think it is all down to social media. People are no longer printing photos and showing friends and family their recent photo album when they come for tea. Instead, we are sharing our photos instantly and forgetting they are there.
Photo sharing sites like Facebook and Instagram have become central to our photo sharing habits. Although not necessarily their primary focus as social networks, we use them to store, share and interact with photos. Facebook even reminds you of your photos years later as a memory which I think is a particularly interesting feature that most social media sites don’t tend to do.
Social media has taken the place of physical photos in our lives because they almost act as memory albums. We can store photos, captions, memories and even share or ‘regram’ posts from our friends which will all be stored in date order and are all in one place. It’s such an easy and convenient way of handling photos that it is no wonder people don’t print them anymore.
What are your thoughts?
We have cameras in our pockets now. You can take several photos at a time, edit and enhance them, share them and be reminded of them every year following (thanks Facebook). It is probably time for me to accept that physical photos are just not what is popular anymore but despite this, I will continue to go through my photos, print them, organise them and cut and stick them for me to look at later. It’s the one thing I could probably be called old fashioned for – sue me!
Is it a good thing we have forgotten about physical photos (save the trees!) or am I the only one that finds value in a tangible photo? I would love to know your thoughts on this topic as the whole point of this post was to open up a discussion and share some of my thoughts. So, please leave a comment and let me know what you think.
Thank you very much for reading and I hope you’re having a great day.
