Look around you. We've gotten a lot farther than banging two rocks together.
You're obviously looking at a computer screen or some other electronic device's screen; (unless you're crazy enough to print this out, but even then you've used another amazing piece of collaborative circuitry) that screen is full of a million itty-bitty blips of light that turn on and off in accordance to endless lines of code hidden in the depths of copper wiring and among digital noise (you'll have to pardon the techno-speak, especially if you actually understand it, because I sure don't).
I may just be babbling, (that's the whole point of this blog, though) but there is a massive amount of stuff going on just to make this screen light up and show you some crazy chick's rambles. Technology is so cool!
Okay. Back to photographs (since we weren't on the subject).
I'm a bit rusty on all the details, but the first photographs were very hard to make and rather dangerous to handle with all the chemicals and such needed to capture light on paper; or glass, as many of the first photographs were. Then, of course, there was the need for the subject to be stationary for a long time in order to get a relatively blur-free photo. Basically, my point is that photographs have gone from very rare and very difficult to make to extremely common and as easy as touching a single button or key.
Just pause for a moment and think about the insane amount of photos there are? Seriously. Think about how many photos you have at just this moment, digital or otherwise. Let's say you figure you have somewhere around 3,500 photos on your hard drive and photo albums. Now multiply that by 1,000,000,000 and you'll have the estimated number of photographs taken since the invention of the camera. For you lazy readers, that is 3.5 TRILLION (3,500,000,000,000) photos!
The even crazier thing is that that number is ever-increasing. People are constantly taking photos; granted a majority of those are pictures of the inside of pockets, but there are still so many photographs that it will become virtually impossible to number!
So it's relatively safe to say that there is an infinite amount of photographs in the world.
I thought I would just blow your mind for a second. Just for fun. But it really is crazy to think of how such a novel and expensive invention turned into something so common and disposable; literally.
There is so much we can do with today's technology it is nigh impossible to take it all in. We have sent a man to the moon already but that was twenty years ago. We have gone from cameras, heck, computers that take up an entire room to ones that can fit through the eye of a needle; like, a really small needle!
Hmm, that's kinda funny. I just realized something very obvious, but rather interesting. We often use "the head of a pin" or "the eye of a needle" to describe something very small. While these are very small, there are really smaller things like dust or, well, the point of a needle.
Then you get to the microscopic level and there's already a developing field in micro-engineering. They are building functioning machines that are essentially too small to see with the naked eye. And don't get me started on nano-technology! (mostly because I don't know enough about it to really discuss it; it's just kinda crazy-awesome)
Anyway, cameras.
Nearly everyone has a camera on or around them now and days. Sadly, not everyone knows how to use them, but they get the gist.
Cameras capture a moment. Sometimes a blurry, washed out moment, but a moment, nonetheless. A photo can preserve and even expand the fraction of time it holds captive.
Cameras are like paintbrushes. Anyone can take hold of one and dabble, but only a few can paint masterpieces.
I'm not a painter. I'm not a sculptor. I'm not a photographer.
But I am an artist.
I draw, I take photographs, I write, I sing, I create.
We are all artists; in our own ways.
I think everyone creates in some form or another; it's in our nature. It is a God-given gift to think and create and to choose what we create and what we do.
It's what we do with these gifts of knowledge and agency that defines us.
Wow. That got serious pretty quick.
On a lighter subject, Wikipedia - regarding why people are told to 'say cheese' before being photographed - states: "By saying 'cheese', most people form their mouths into what appears to be a smile-like shape. Additionally, the absurdity of saying 'cheese' for no apparent reason can incite glee in some people."
I thought that last part was kinda funny when read by itself.
