Courtesy : www.oregonstatefair.org
“Can I have apicture of me, looking at the sea with the mountain on the other side as background? It is important that light falls on me from my right side” – a girl asked her photographer-friend. After thinking hard and strategically positioning her, he clicks a ‘profile picture’. She looks at the photo for a full one minute and realizes that her nose is not perfect in it. Thanks to post-processing, skin-toning, color-contrasting and various other corrections available, she smiled for the second time. I’m sure all photo enthusiasts have experienced this at least once. I completely agree that photography is a skill (especially with such requests). The point that I’m trying to make is one need not capture all that one does in one’s waking hour and post it in social media. For that matter, I have come across pictures of people sleeping!
With extensive usage of social media and people’s craving for ‘likes’, it is almost like a rat race. The whole point of a picture being a souvenir is lost and any beautiful scenery becomes just a potential background. It has almost become a compulsion to post a picture when they come across something beautiful. Then comes the comments portion where the photo is dissected back to pixels and analyzed. Light, focus, dress and even things that are not there but could have been there are debated. The critics throw a new light on the photo and the victim is all set for an improved profile picture. The amateur photographer is not seen anywhere in the vicinity!