I Was Here

One of my issues with the museums around the world is that they don’t allow you to take pictures within them. Why don’t they?

Originally the flash was so intense that it would actually damage colors of paintings. But that excuse did not last too long especially with digital photography and flash-less capabilities. THEN the excuse for not letting you take pictures was that it would bother the other customers. THEN the excuse was a simple economic one, you could BUY photo books or postcards of all the things in the museum in the bookshop at the end of the tour. But, somehow, looking at a picture book is not as satisfying as looking at your own photos (AND forcing friends and family to look at all your photos!)

Why do we want to take the pictures ourselves when better ones are just a few clicks away on our computer?

I think the reason is that we want to be able to say: “I Was THERE!” A picture book doesn’t do that. Postcards don’t say anything about you being there. We take pictures to, hopefully, prolong the experience of being there. We take vacations and go places NOT to get the pictures but to get the experience. The experience is why we take pictures. When we look back at the pictures we can, in just a small way, experience the place again. We can say, “I was here.”

Capturing moments of an experience is what cameras are good at. Even more moments can be captured now that cameras have been included with phones and the concept of a “selfie” has become dictionary-a-tized (a word I just made up since “selfie” is now in the dictionary). “I was here!” “I existed in this time and in this place!”

If I were the curator of a famous museum I would take advantage of this trend. I would make taking a selfie in front of the Mona Lisa a trending topic on twitter or attempting to capture the smile of King Tut’s mask a hashtag. Sometimes magic happens. I call it the “money shot” where after a thousand of so-so pictures on my digital camera I take that PERFECT picture. Wouldn’t you, as the curator of the museum, LOVE to have that money shot on your website? Or in your latest coffee-table book? I would, so let us take pictures, let us take selfies, and let us spread the joy, the “I was here” moments. Let us live the experience again and again.

Recently I have seen some pictures of me preaching and teaching show up on Facebook. 

Interesting. I don’t know if it is because I am an old relic, or if I am a fascinating freak; either way I have no problem with it. You can take as many pictures of church as you want … easy on the flash though. Let’s see if someone can capture the Holy Spirit.