The Case against Photography

On the spectrum of photographers I would place myself somewhere in the middle. I have seen some pretty rubbish photography in my time, and I guess with the advent of digital cameras now everyone’s a photographer.

On my recent holiday to Fiji the thing that I was most taken with (with the notable exception of my radiant fiancée) was the snorkelling. The sense of peace I felt out on the coral reef, a thousand submarine lives playing out around me, was incredible.
As I floated above schools of beautifully coloured and patterned fish, intricate coral and clear white sand I did think to myself, ‘I would love to get a photo of this.’ But because the camera that we had brought with us was not designed for use underwater I was unable to do so.
But let’s say I had been equipped with such a camera, would I be any happier now? The memories remain vivid in my memory as a result of the experience, as much as the sights I witnessed. You can’t take a photograph of spontaneous laughter filtered through a snorkel. Any photos that I had taken simply would not have done that experience justice.

My limited experience of photography is that, in many ways, it is a waiting game. Light conditions need to be right, the sun at the correct height to deliver that perfect shot or blast away pesky obscuring shadow. Maybe the wind is too high, the temperature too low, the baby blinked, that look on a face is gone. All of these factors need to be accounted for, managed, in order to get that perfect shot. It’s kind of like being a hunter, but without the messy result one would hope.
In a way, I would rather live life and have those experiences.
I don’t hate photos. I love going back through photos I have taken and reliving the memories. But the important part of that is the reliving of the memories, the experience. I have never looked at a photo and thought ‘that is a really well-taken photograph.’

I have a similar sentiment about music. There are some songs, ones that I really love, that I would never like to see the music for. The act of going through and deliberately learning the chords or the melody, breaking the song down into its component parts, would be doing it a disservice.

What do you think, Sarah?