matches # 4 ~ pictures on my mind
Monday, May 7, 2012 at 10:06AM ;)
Matches / HIT • click to embiggenYesterday, I purchased the New Times Sunday edition, something the wife and I used to do every Sunday. Then came the came the online subscription paradigm for the NYT and we subscribed, primarily because we perused (never reading in-depth) the daily NYT editions online. However, shortly thereafter, we stopped purchasing the Sunday NYT, paper edition.
A short while after purchasing our iPads, the wife and I also ventured into the ebook arena. Before long, purchasing books made out of paper became a thing of the past in our household. No doubt that situation was helped along by the disappearance of our local Borders bookstore but the convenience and ease of purchasing ebooks and the fact that our entire book library fits in the hand ... well, needless to state, we got sucked, hook / line / and sinker, right into the ebook thing.
Not long before purchasing the Sunday NYT, paper edition, I had also read a book - Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - made of paper products. That reading experience + the recent Sunday NYT experience - the look, the feel, the weight, the very smell of paper and that act of turning actual pages - and I'm here to tell ya, I have most definitely been re-introduced to the joys of paper products, printed word wise.
There is absolutely no positive comparison between the experience of reading the Sunday NYT at the Sunday morning breakfast table with that of trying to read the same on an iPad. Not to mention the visual and tactile pleasure of whiling away another few Sunday hours with a cup / cups of coffee and the printed version of the Sunday NYT Magazine. After all, one of the pleasures of that magazine is the preponderance of notable and noteworthy pictures and, to my eye and sensibilities, if a picture ain't actual, it's virtual, and, IMO, actual trumps virtual in just about every part of life one might care to mention. Including pictures.
A picture on a computer screen is one thing (although, it's not actually a thing), the same picture on paper is quite another thing. I've made my feelings about the difference known on a number of blogging occasions. As time goes by, my feelings on this subject have intensified as my experience with virtual versus actual pictures increases. I have nearly reached the point of never wanting to see a picture on a computer screen ever again.
While the computer + the www. makes possible the viewing of a lot of pictures that one might not ordinarily see, I am nevertheless reminded of the adage regarding quantity vs quality. In my book, as opposed to in our cultural inclination, that's no contest - I'll put my money on quality almost every time.
And, for me, the inescapable fact is that I can't seem to help but feel diminished rather than enriched by the endless flow of virtual pictures.
FYI, next up, my thoughts on a printed log (a plog?) versus a virtual blog.
gravitas et nugalis
Featured Comment: John Linn wrote: "Is your little camera man throwing us the finger?"
my response: Thanks to the medium's inherent ambiguity, which can leave much in a picture open to individual interpretation, that's one way of looking at it. The way I see it is that the camera-head matchstick man is wielding the Flaming Sword from the Holy Temple of Truth and Beauty in Reality.
Others may see it differently.
Reader Comments (3)
Is your little camera man throwing us the finger?
I preferred going back to my iPad...
I also like getting library books on the iPad while sitting at home, because the library is 400 miles away.
All I can say is that the "camera-head matchstick man" looks a little burned out. Yet, he remains focused.