I purchased my first iPhone nearly 15 years ago. I would have jumped on board earlier, but the product wasn’t available in my little Vermont town. Prior to that, I had several flip phones, but I was always pining for Steve Jobs’ glorious invention.
I just looked back, and it appears that I took my first digital iPhone photo in early 2011. It was a shot of my then 7-year-old son flashing me the peace sign while sipping on a beverage. We were obviously eating at a sushi restaurant because, in the next photo, he’s holding two chopsticks on his head like devil horns.
While I wouldn’t consider myself a serious “shutterbug,” I do like to take photos of people and things that I find interesting. When there’s a family event or special occasion, I tend to be the annoying guy nudging everyone into a group for a commemorative shot.
To date, I’ve held up my phone to take a photo 3,699 times, which seems like an obscene number to me. This got me curious, so I asked my son and his girlfriend (both 20 years old) how many photos they had on their phones. My son had just over 1,700 while his girlfriend boasted 46,343 (I’m still trying to comprehend the latter number).
My son’s relatively low number was surprising, given that he spent several years taking mindless selfies with Snapchat. However, he corrected me by noting that Snapchat doesn’t save the photos.
My curiosity was still unresolved, so I did some online research. Not surprisingly, since the introduction of the smartphone, the number of photos people take daily has increased significantly.
Americans capture about six photos per day using their mobile devices. This frequent photography results in the typical smartphone user storing nearly 2,800 photos on their device. Globally, it’s estimated that over 5 billion photos are taken daily, with smartphones accounting for 94% of these images. It’s now estimated that users will take more than 2 trillion photos on their smartphones each year.
After reading the data, I had to admit that I’m more apt to pull out my phone to capture a moment than most people. However, it should be noted that, unlike others who take multiple shots of the same moment, I religiously go back and delete all of the versions until I find the one I like best. If I didn’t do that, I’d easily have three times the amount.
Of course, as much as I enjoy digital photography, I am not beholden to the medium. I still have a DSLR camera that I’ll pull out from time to time, but quite honestly, it’s almost for nostalgic reasons at this point. The new smartphones are just so damn good.
And while printing photos is so “yesterday,” I still enjoy doing that quite often. I can snap a great photo and, within minutes, pull up my CVS app, load the image, apply a frame, and have the whole thing ready to pick up within an hour. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve captured a special moment and had a physical print of it prepared to hand out a short time later. Of course, I could text or airdrop the digital version via my phone, but let’s be honest, who doesn’t love getting a framed print now and then?
Ultimately, this longstanding love of photography came from my mother, who always made it a point to take photos of my brothers and me while we were growing up. When she got her first smartphone, it didn’t take her long to adjust to the new medium. She’s now 90 years old and still taking photographs with her phone daily. She even crops, edits, and color-corrects any photos we send her. (Note: She’s got 1,592 photos on her smartphone.)
This week’s feature, “Beau is Afraid,” also focuses on the influence of a mother figure, but the impact is profoundly negative in this case.
Starring Joaquin Phoenix, “Beau is Afraid” is a study of mental illness. The entire film is about one man’s descent into psychological chaos brought on by a commandeering mother who obliviously damaged her son during his impressionable youth. Subsequently, the boy grows up into a hapless degenerate incapable of leading his life in any sort of meaningful way.
I have to admit, this film was interesting to watch, primarily because of the hallucinatory episodes that marked the main character’s reality. Unfortunately, the story was as disjointed as the main character’s mental capabilities, leading to a so-so experience.
Check this one out if you’re curious about the approach. Just be prepared for something wildly unhinged and difficult to follow.
An irrational “C+” for “Beau is Afraid” is now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
Got a question or comment for Dom? You can email him at [email protected].
