With the advancements in technology – especially surrounding mobile phones or tablets – for the majority of us, our days are spent glued to their screens, in order to watch movies, purchase items online, and perhaps most common, to check our social media. Statistics show that on average, we spend three hours and fifteen minutes a day, on our mobile phones. This may not seem a lot, but if we take into consideration that on average, a person sleeps between seven and nine hours every day, that statistic isn’t positive.
When I lived in London, I dreaded using the underground, but always found it to be such a fascinating environment, when considering human behaviour. You would think that a tightly packed carriage would be a social place. In fact, it was the total opposite. Looking down the carriages, it would be hard not to spot someone who wasn’t immersed in their phone. However, I cannot be too judgemental, as I too on many occasion, fell victim to ‘the screen’. I would like to think that this mass behaviour, is due to the fact that there isn’t anything of particular interest ‘underground’, and the act of being on one’s phone, or tablet, is merely an activity to pass the time. Unfortunately, I don’t believe this to be the case, and when specifically considering opportunities surrounding photography, there are many potential moments to capture memorable images’ – if we just look. We only need to refer back to Martin Parr’s work ‘Japanese Commuters’ for confirmation of this notion. Of course, smart phones were not around in 1998, so perhaps, individuals’ were more aware of their surroundings then, than they are now. However, this doesn’t take away the fact that Parr effectively took advantage of the environment he was in, and produced a series of fascinating photographs’ that many of us would miss – more so today.
JAPAN. Tokyo. From ‘Japanese Commuters’. 1998.
I think in general, anytime we are concentrating on anything else that isn’t directly in front of us, we are missing a potential opportunity to capture that ‘decisive moment’, witness something that we may want to photograph later, or draw inspiration from to create a project. This would mean however, carrying a ‘professional’ camera at all times, which realistically, isn’t always practical. So, why not take advantage of the very device that could be the reason why these images’ aren’t photographed in the first place – a mobile phone.
References
The Guardian. (2019). ‘Shock! Horror! Do you know how much time you spend on your phone?’ [Online] Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/aug/21/cellphone-screen-time-average-habits#:~:text=According%20to%20research%20from%20RescueTime,four%20and%20a%20half%20hours.
Magnum Photos. (2014). ‘Feature – Tokyo Commuters.1998Martin Parr’ [Online] Available from: https://pro.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&ALID=2S5RYD12J76K
Pinterest. (2019). ‘150 years of the London Underground – in pictures’ [Online] Available from: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/552605816759206948/
Iain Barbour - BA (Hons) Photography 