It's not about the here and now.
Today's internet is increasingly about immediacy. When we can video Skype with
someone thousands of miles away, we hardly need to have a photograph of him or
her to help us focus. Eight years ago, when Tzippi
and Hila took a short trip to Canada, I agreed to their trip on the condition
that Tzippi's brother (with whom they were staying) install ICQ on his computer,
and send me a digital photo of Hila each day. I probably would have survived without
those stipulations (which were more or less held to as planned), but they were
important to me not because I wanted to establish memories, but because I wanted
to maintain contact in the there and then. Perhaps it's precisely because there
are so many available means today for immediate contact that photographs, which
once reminded us what people look like, have become valuable because they
remind us of what they looked like.
Go to: Speaking to, and through, photographs, or
Go to: But what do we do with those?, or
Go to: The pleasure is in the doing, or
Go to: Basically, it's a feeling, or
Go to: To hold in our hands.