What do all of these pictures have in common?
I took them with no intention of doing anything with them at all (except now they will live on this blog post forever and ever…).
A fabulous new shop I discovered (Ofr. in the Marais), profiteroles that tasted just like my mom’s chocolate fudge and Nana’s vanilla ice cream, a note from a friend, a cat, a sunset.
All tiny joyous fragments of moments that make up my long days, but why does reacting to such beauty always demands a flick?
At this point, it’s muscle memory - whipping out my phone and pressing that little white button. I see something funny, click. Sad, click. Weird, click. From dead birds to drunk selfies to Snapchat memories, I click away. You’d think I’m some kind of researcher or documentarian, but I think this is just being born in 2001.
And the craziest part is, I save all of it. And I don’t plan on deleting a single thing. If a picture truly does speak 1,000 words, and I have 27,846 photos and 1,231 videos… baby, that's a biography!
What could I ever do with all of these photos? Honestly, writing this blog helps. I review my photos from each week to jog my memory on various sights, bites, and beyond. Pictures help me communicate with my friends and family, like sending Annabelle a pic every time I have jelly eggs or my family random life updates.
And I’m not alone in this at all. Especially living in a city, people all around you are constantly taking photos of EVERYTHING.
My Art History class took a field trip to Musée d’Orsay the other day. Right now, there are three monumental works on display from Kehinde Wiley (who did Obama’s presidential portrait a while back).
The first thing someone in our class said was, “Oh, Louis Vuitton!” (I don’t have a picture to show lol, but the subject of the piece is wearing LV), and then we all proceeded to take out our iPhones and snap a pic.
Our professor had us look around the room - every visitor was doing the same. Phones up high, critical squint of the eyes. Do they even know what they are photographing?
The museum does a disservice to the work without giving it any context once so ever (especially in a sea of paintings of white people by old white dudes). Still, they do know how to successfully trigger that Instragamable impulse that we all have built into our brains at this point.
Obviously, this thing social media exists, and it’s alluring to seem cultured and relevant to all your “friends,” more like followers. But, it also gives the false impression that every picture has to have an endpoint, taking on some form of “content” for the consumption of others.
In most other cases, people just take to take - like me! Could I find a wayyyy better photo of every artwork in that museum online? Yes. But in a way, taking a photo is like taking ownership over your own experience of that moment.
Later that day, my studio art class sent me to the Pompidou (oh, that crazy lookin’ thing). Our teacher told us to plop down before a piece and draw. Amidst a sea of camera-clad paparazzi, we were taking pencil to paper to capture these works in an entirely different way. It was fantastic - to sit for two hours staring up at a Picasso to bask in how Pablo did what he did and why?
While still taking a picture… to immortalize the moment, you know.
As long as I keep forking my money over to Google Drive every month, I see no problem in taking pictures of every little thing. It immortalizes a moment, and the photo, in an instant, can remind you of the things you saw, the food you ate, and the people you were with - when it feels like all of that is so far away in space and time.
As long as my device doesn’t hinder the present moment here and now, I’ll merrily keep snapping away - filling camera rolls until the end of time. Although it’s fun to stop every once in a while to ask why, to photos, I say: why not?
more pictures to come…
xoxo, Chloé
Always a fun read. ❤️❤️
Chloe Brown and her wild hair, I miss you