Social Media

My oldest son recently received an iPhone. Personally he does not believe in the use of social media, seriously. Mostly he uses it as a terminal for his server and he captures all sorts of images on the camera. When I asked him what his motivated this recent spate of photographic activity he smiled and said, "If you don't take a picture of it, then it didn't happen."

While he doesn't believe in or participate in social media, the ladvery succinctly summed up the culture of social media with that one phrase. If we don't capture it and post it to Facebook them it hasn't achieved the state of reality. Thinking about something doesn't matter unless you have shared the thought and collected likes and comments. Solo quiet reflection doesn't count not

unless you've got 47 likes and 15 comments. 

I have walked away from social media for a time. It was just the thing to do. I need to find the real in other outlets.

There is something that happens when you take photographs of plants and architecture. The experience sort of defies description. Pictures of plants remind you of the essence of life,of reality. Pictures of architecture remind you of the dreams andhigher aspirations of humanity. These images also remind you of the impermanence of humankind.

My pictures are nothing more than a limited out of focus collection of electronic particles stored on the small handheld device. In a few hours, days, months or years all of my imageswill be gone and completely forgotten. The things capturedhappened but they don't really matter. Still I'll keep taking these images and working with them and trying to make something beautiful. And in the cosmic scheme of things it's just for giggles and grins.