I was seeing Africa for the first time.
Unfortunately, I was already home.
Years earlier, my dad had invited me on a safari in Botswana. He was starting a safari company on the side and needed photographs for a brochure. He would pay for the trip. I would take the pictures.
It sounded like a magnificent deal.
I kept the camera ready
We went deep into the wilderness, hundreds of miles from the nearest town. We slept in tents with lions and hyenas as our neighbours. We saw giraffes, pelicans, monkeys, hippos and impala. Wild elephants chased our old Land Rover. African sunsets set the sky ablaze.
I had the camera ready for everything. The trip was beautiful and wild and enormous.
After I came home, the slides were developed. I dimmed the lights, projected the pictures onto a wall and began clicking through them.
I was shocked.
What an incredible sunset.
What an extraordinary creature.
Then a sadder thought arrived: Where had I been for the whole trip?
While the sunset burned across the sky, I had been fiddling with the shutter speed and straining to see a light meter through a tiny viewfinder. While the elephant chased the Land Rover, I had been trying to keep the shot from blurring.
I had the evidence. I had not had the experience.
The camera did not steal my soul. But on that trip, it stole precious experiences from my life.
Then the ocean took my phone
Years later, a client asked me to send her more photographs of Kauai. I had an email newsletter by then. Although I did not normally take my phone to the beach, I felt obliged.
I drove my old white four-wheel drive to Rock Quarry Beach and began constructing a scene. Coconut trees. The river mouth. The swing over the water. A magical tunnel of trees.
Then I waded into the water with the phone held above my head, trying to line up a photograph worth sending.
A massive wave came out of nowhere.
The phone vanished.
I had not seen the wave coming because I was looking at the screen.
I thrashed through white water, raking my hands through sand and foam, swallowing salt water. Another set knocked me sideways. The phone was gone.
My first feeling was shock.
The second feeling, arriving about ten seconds later, was relief.
Quiet. Freedom. Space.
The ocean had made the decision for me.
When I got home, I posted a poll:
A — Buy the new iPhone
B — Do nothing
C — Eat chocolate
Eat chocolate won.
Taking photographs is not the enemy
I am not arguing that every photograph diminishes an experience. A photograph can preserve a face, a place or a day that matters. Photography can also make a person look more carefully.
The trouble begins when recording becomes automatic. The camera stops being a way of seeing and becomes the task. Attention moves from the child, animal, song or sunset to framing, retaking, posting and checking.
What the research actually found
The research does not give us a commandment to take photographs or ban them.
In two museum studies, Linda Henkel found that participants remembered fewer photographed objects and details when they were instructed to photograph each object as a whole. Zooming in on a specific detail removed that impairment. A later field study and three lab studies by Alixandra Barasch and colleagues found that people who chose their own photographs remembered more of what they saw and less of what they heard. Another series of experiments found that taking photographs could increase enjoyment when the act increased engagement, but not when photography interfered with the experience.
The fair conclusion is modest: a camera can redirect attention. The direction depends on why and how a person is using the camera.
- Linda Henkel, “Point-and-Shoot Memories”, Psychological Science, 2014.
- Alixandra Barasch and colleagues, “Photographic Memory”, Psychological Science, 2017.
- Kristin Diehl, Gal Zauberman and Alixandra Barasch, “How Taking Photos Increases Enjoyment of Experiences”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2016.
A small boundary for the next important moment
Before the next concert, birthday, walk or sunset, decide whether you want a record or the experience right now.
If you want both, take one photograph. Then put the phone away and let the rest of the event belong to your eyes, ears and body.
The photograph may preserve one second. The boundary protects the minutes that follow.
Listen to the original audio
The Dark Side Library contains my 8:35 audio, “Does Capturing A Photograph Steal Your Experience?” The article adds the full Botswana and Kauai stories rather than transcribing the recording.
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