Sontag Response

The original photo, as well as the ones posted below, reflect the common effort of families to memorialize and possess a single moment of time - one where everyone is together, smiling and happy. Ever since cameras became a popular item to own, especially in families that have children, it has become a common saying before every family event: "Make sure you take lots of pictures." Using a camera is such an accessible, easy way for families to record events; you simply gather everyone together, say cheese, and it's done. No matter what the event - weddings, birthdays, vacations, etc - it is rare to go to anywhere without seeing a family posed together, recording whatever moment for their memories. No real planning needs to go into such informal portraits, all is required is the quick instant to decide that this would be the perfect time for a family photo. Maybe you set the timer on the camera or get an outsider to take the photograph for you, the frame is set up to capture both the people and the background in order to get an accurate memory (where are we? when was this? who was there?), and the button is pressed. In the dawn of the age of digital cameras, it even became unnecessary to pause and think about the aperture and shutter speed - now you just set the camera on auto and you're ready to go. And it's not just family that's captured in these artifacts of time, friends, places, even a funny sign is enough to warrant the possessor of the camera to pause for a second, pull out their camera (set on auto, of course) and snap away. Memory cards render film and the conservation of images useless - everything is captured. Thought is more or less removed from the process nowadays. And yet, we think enough at the time to consider the moment worthwhile to capture, but the photos rarely go farther than a computer hard drive or a Facebook album, both of which are rarely viewed after the initial uploading. So why do people continue to want to possess these moments? Is it because it is so automatic for us to constantly pull our cameras out and be able to say "this is my family, look how happy we are together", or is it something more, a desire to own the moment, to prove to ourselves that these moments exist in the consumerist society we live in today?