The Etiquette of Photography

With the new year, I felt compelled to do something, so I decided to tackle organizing my phone’s photo album, a task I’d endlessly postponed. I started reviewing them in order, from the most recently taken photos, censoring what to delete and what to keep, but in the end, I couldn’t even finish two months’ worth. Who knew that the photos I’d taken haphazardly and without much thought back then, simply because I liked them or was excited, would turn into such an unmanageable burden? The irony that the process of looking back at and organizing those captured moments was more exhausting and overwhelming than happy was so disheartening that I had no choice but to close the photo album.

One time, when I was taking a picture of food as usual, my Dad saw me and remarked that people no longer have “courtesy towards photographs.” It didn’t really resonate with me at the time, but thinking about it carefully, his words make a lot of sense. At some point, we started turning on our phone cameras so easily, capturing countless moments with just a simple tap of a button. Perhaps we’re taking photos habitually and meaninglessly, to the point where we’ve forgotten how to truly immerse ourselves in and purely experience the actual moment. Is it possible that the act of recording this moment—because it’s precious, a shame to miss, fascinating, enjoyable, or to preserve it for a long time—is paradoxically fading the moment itself?

Just like in the days when cameras were very rare, and people pressed the shutter with a trembling heart to capture a moment, this new year, I should only capture moments that cannot be easily erased.