Picture this! A disconnected reality

Ashima Sehajpal Batish

Not all pictures are worth a thousand words. Many say nothing. These are just clicked. With a phone camera that doesn’t need a reel refill, going on a clicking spree is like running a race in a video game. You never get tired.  That’s the first step ticked — clicked. Second is sharing. And third is commenting. 

The loop isn’t meant to be broken, even if the price to be paid is physical-moment-lost-in-the-transition-of-getting-captured.  Even if one can’t make out if the picture is clicked for the occasion or occasion is celebrated for glitzy social media posts.

It is the loop that entitles the Punjabi origin Matharoo sisters — Jyoti and Kiran — as the popular Kardashian version of Canada. That also makes Taimur Ali Khan, Bollywood actors Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor’s son, ‘enjoy’ a dozen Instagram handles and over a lakh followers on some of these accounts. 

So when Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh took time to post pictures of one of the most-anticipated events of the year, their wedding in Italy, the withdrawal symptoms of fans began showing up. Some gave up, almost, grudgingly ruing that celebrities are liable to share their space, and privacy is a casualty they have to deal with. And that the actor couple fared poorly on its responsibility towards the fans (though later a lot of pictures were shared). 

The dedicated ones kept refreshing their social media accounts, with the hope that a picture might pop up, that someone somewhere might be able to crash the wedding, though virtually. But when was a wedding, a private affair, meant to be accessed by all, gatecrashed by sundry. 

We forget this simple fact. But can’t be blamed for the brash behaviour. Such has been the conditioning over the years. Special shoots — pre-wedding, mehndi, wedding, babyshower, pre-baby, post baby — are arranged for post event enjoyment, and, more importantly, for the social media. “One loses touch with one’s reality. We want to be popular, admired, called out the best all the time. And gradually, we begin to believe that love, life, looks…everything artificial is real,” says Sathya Saran, author of How to Look Like Miss India.

 Traditionally, pictures are meant to refresh our memory, but how can a moment be recalled when the attention is divided between clicking pictures and soaking in the moment. “I hope people actually have as much fun as they want to project through their pictures and pouts,” says Neeti Palta, a stand-up comedian. When she is not preparing for gigs or actually performing one of those, she too is clicking pictures. “That I do when I am free, not when I am working. So, when you see someone flooding Instagram or posting stories on Snapchat without punctuation, you should know ‘someone’ needs help professionally,” adds Neeti. 

Prashant Panjiar, a photographer based in Goa, who has been curating exhibitions for the Serendipity Arts Festival, says that people don’t click because they are obsessed with photography, but with themselves. “Photography is only the medium. Just like if people scribble their feelings on a historical monument, you can’t blame literature, but the ones who defaced these.” The aim in both cases is the same: to introduce themselves and to tell the world about their existence. Another repercussion is that those who like to make public everything about their personal life hold the same degree of respect for others’ privacy. Exactly what happened with Deepika Ranveer Singh’s wedding.

As the private becomes public, people click and post everything possible — ‘foodporn’ they indulge in, exotic locations they ‘vacay’ in, luxury wear they slip into, luxury bags they flaunt, the social circle they move in.  More the flimsy glamour is outpoured, more is the number of followers, which means fuelling the account with more pictures. The Matharoo sisters’ Instagram handles is a case in point. There are pictures on the beach, inside the private jets and yatches, with every fashion accessory complementing the uber-rich setting. And the hashtags as many.

There are thousands of such social influencers, who have given in to the seductions of digital platform — #Instapic, instant post, instant fame and then a fizzle out. Sathya reflects, “How long can an empty career last for? There is no skill to hone, no depth to strive for. Constant insecurity can become a companion. One pic doesn’t get as many likes or clicks, and the heart breaks.” 

The fundamental filters of common sense and reason have become more important than ever before. 

Love thyself, not the selfie

Taking pictures all the time, for all the reasons, can be distracting while doing daily chores, but it is the selfie part of photography that is really damaging. Lethal at times. A collaborative study, Me, Myself and My Killfie: Characterizing and Preventing Selfie Deaths, by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Indraprastha Institute of Information Delhi, found out that between March 2014 and September 2016, 60 per cent of all ‘selfie deaths’, occurred in India. In 2016, Mumbai Police even came up with list of 16 no-selfie zones. However, sensing a huge market in India, software developing companies have introduced filter apps for the youth. Initially introduced by Snapchat, there are two types of filters — first to add features to the pictures, i.e. dog ears, cat whiskers, leopard print, and second to remove ‘imperfections’, like blemishes or scars. These, of course, Photoshop the pictures and the results are light complexion and chiseled features. If numbers are to be believed, the filter market is estimated at a whopping 100 crore. Which reads so true given that Instagram  reported 7.1 crore monthly active users in India and Facebook boasted of 29.4 crore users, the highest in world. The US comes second at 20.4 crore users.