The reason people put photos online is so others can see them. We expect everyone to come and marvel at our latest pictures of our cats, kids, vacations and weddings, but who is actually looking at all of this crap?
I found this story on CNET about how Shutterfly.com has started a new social photo website. Seriously, how many more of these things can society take? I barely have enough time to look at the photos that my friends dump onto Facebook every day. How do people find time to look at all this stuff?
Also, as a photographer, here is my beef with photo-sharing websites: how conceited and self-centered have we become? I find myself marveling at my own photographs, but I barely spend a second on my friends' photos online. I have a feeling that other people my age are the same way.
Scrap-bookers are invading the internet, but only to do the same thing that they've always done - bore the heck out of their friends. Our computer-centered society does not like to be bored. On upside to this is that you don't have to sit in your friend's living room and suffer through the whole album of their cat or their trip to Newport, Oregon - you can simply close the window.
The only thing that I really find interesting about the photo-sharing on Facebook and album websites is that you can tag or be tagged in photos, which makes it really easy for people to sort out photos of you and literally see what you've been up to lately. On each of the photos, a person can then leave their comments, which I think is really cool because it encourages dissemination and community discussion.
Either way you look at it, photo-sharing is a phenomenon that will never go away. Our world must embrace this sort of technology. I'm probably going to start putting more photos on Facebook, but then my grandparents won't be able to see what I've been up to lately, which is probably a good thing.
Thanks for reading,
-John.
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