I really do wonder how our pervasive digital world is affecting our health. Both physical and especially mental. Speaking for myself, I’m vacillating between deleting all social media and embracing them wholeheartedly.
I watched this guy for almost a half an hour and he never changed his expression. In fact he hardly moved.
There’s a wonderful place in Boston called the News Feed Cafe. It’s located right off the entrance to the new wing of our main public library. Beside serving good coffee, tea and tasty snacks, it contains a fully functioning radio and TV studio of our Public Broadcasting station WGBH.
I go there often for a quick java and to rest for a while before heading back home. Lately I’ve been struck by this somewhat odd and distinctly heady confluence of printed thought and our contemporary torrent of digital information.
This guy looks to me as if he’s been caught in the crossfire.
This photo was taken 15 seconds from the front door of the Harvard Coop Store, smack dab in the middle of Harvard Square, a place with some of the highest real estate values in the state. My point for this lengthy explanation is, often we fail to see clearly what is happening on our very doorstep. We are increasingly mesmerized by the digital world and are losing sight of the real one. Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple and Twitter are eating our lunch and we are still only barely aware of the chaos to come.
I now own an iPhone 7+. It sports a 12 megapixel camera, has optical image stabilization, a ƒ/1.8 aperture and can shoot good looking videos very easily. In short, the damn thing is is a powerhouse!
Frankly I’m not sure how this digital evolution will all play out, but I do know that the thing I always have in my pocket is well on its way to transforming the photographic industry.
For those of us who are afflicted with a terrible urge to buy the latest and the greatest new digital camera thingy, take a look at this guy. I saw him yesterday wandering across Charles Street toward the Public Garden.
I bet he takes really great photographs with this antique.