humans like cameras

[sf]

I was just thinking, and really this isn't worth a thread, that it's funny how people regard photography and camera technology. To me (and to some other people here, I'm sure), it seems that cameras were the ultimate product of human ingenuity and that all these cars and computers and the wheel and fire...they were all just by-products of this pursuit. On our way to discovering lenses, we had to invent the wheel. So we did. And electricity too. We happened on nuclear fission on our way to inventing the camera.

Or, I guess it really just appears that this is the case. Look at how people hold their cameras and how they use them. Consider GAS. It all comes together. We evolved to produce the camera.

 

[akptc]

It makes sense. Just think of the cave paintings of the early Man.

RF owners are probably at the evolutionary apex of our species. Yup, I am buying this.

 

[Avotius]

You know what always surprises me....when you hand a camera to a small child and they know to stick it to their eye...

 

[sf]

Maybe this is because the camera is directly the result of, and a tool for feeding, the powerful human emotion of nostalgia. Or the expectation of nostalgia.

Few pieces of technological advancement can be connected so closely to the soul.

 

[RML]

People have the same GAS when it comes to cars, beautiful women, homes, appliances, art, etc. The human species is a hoarder. And we do anything to make it easier for ourselves to hoard more stuff. That's where invention, innovation and technology comes from. We're plain greedy, never satisfied with what we have.

 

[Mr Ho]

The mind's eye?

The mind's eye?

Yes, the mind can feel what the camera saw. And differently each time.

 

[Tuolumne]

It is amazing to me the wide variety of cameras that have been developed to capture what the eye sees and the heart feels, to freeze time, and bring memories back to life in a way that was impossible to early man. I feel sorry for them - those who never lived to see a camera. The astonishing variety of cameras speaks to how compelling the technology is and how many different ways there are to spin what is in essence a "dark room" with a view - camera obscura - the original camera.

T.

 

[tkluck]

You know what always surprises me....when you hand a camera to a small child and they know to stick it to their eye...

Did that with an 8 year old. She looked at the film reminder pocket on the back first and asked my how to turn it on.

 

[Tuolumne]

Yes, but that was accessible to only a tiny fraction of humanity, plus it was someone else's vision, not yours. And even Kings had only rare portraits done. No, it was the camera that democratized the freezing of time, even for royalty.

T.

 

[Jeremy Z]

Yes, but that was accessible to only a tiny fraction of humanity, plus it was someone else's vision, not yours. And even Kings had only rare portraits done. No, it was the camera that democratized the freezing of time, even for royalty.

T.

I don't know, it may be that only kings commissioned the big, expensive paintings, or that only the ones from kings survived.

Perhaps commoners had artists do pencil drawings, on cheap paper, and they just haven't survived through the generations.?

Great idea for a thread.

Yes, the mind can feel what the camera saw. And differently each time.

Well said, Mr Ho. I agree.

 

[Jason Sprenger]

Poorer folks had more primitive tokens of remembrance. I believe framed silhouettes were much more affordable and available than a complete painting.

 

[RML]

Poorer folks had more primitive tokens of remembrance. I believe framed silhouettes were much more affordable and available than a complete painting.

Chinese calligraphy was available to many, and so were prints designed by people like Hokusai, for which we now pay huge sums of money for a mint specimen. Prints were then what now magazines are: cheap and widely available.

 

[Stephan]

Maybe we exist only to observe the universe and make sure quantum mechanics function as they should (check your house now). Hence cameras so we can record our findings.