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Surrounded by digital cameras, LCD projectors, big screen TVs, and laptop computers, kids today are growing up in a world of pictures. But is that a good thing or bad thing? Depends on the pictures.
This was made crystal clear to me this week during my eleven-year-old son's graduation from elementary school. (Yes, in my town it's a big deal to make it through the fifth grade.) Before I go into the details, let me tell you something about this child. When he was only five, way back in the year 2000, I boasted that he was the most digitally-photographed child on the planet. From the moment he was born, digital cameras (and film too!) played a big part in his life. For example, I took a photo of him 15 minutes after he was born. The picture appeared on the Oct. 1995 cover of Popular Photography. Within 6 hours of his birth, I emailed a VGA-res photo taken with an Apple QuickTake 100 to every person I knew with an email address (about 30 at the time). Half those folks couldn't open the image, but the others were stunned by the immediacy of the photo, as my son wasn't even a day old. Over the years, his life was recorded more and more frequently on digital cameras as I had an unlimited supply to test and the image quality kept improving.
But I was still surprised (and quite impressed!) when my wife handed me a copy of my son's yearbook. It was filled with hundreds of photos of him, his younger brother, and every other kid, teacher, janitor, and administrator in the school. Apparently, one of the PTA volunteers at the school, Ms. Michelle Piccone, has a real talent for photomontage work. The images were clipped, cropped, and carefully arranged, covering the pages with clever layouts, class portfolios, and group shots. The photos were all shot by many different people, even the children, but it took the dedicated work of a few people to sort them, arrange them, and get them into the final book. Ten years ago, the cost of this yearbook would have been astronomical due to all the scanning and color separation charges, but thanks to digital photos, affordable page layout programs, and a talented editor, it looked like a team of college students had worked on it all year. The yearbook staff and the digital photography used in the yearbook get an A+.
The graduation ceremony for the 80-plus students started that evening around 6:30 in a warm auditorium packed nearly to capacity. (Did I mention the lack of air conditioning? Or that the ceremony went on till after 9pm?) But every proud parent sat on the edge of his or her seat as awards, class songs, special presentations, and speeches about the children and teachers progressed throughout the evening.
Once the ceremonies were over, the faculty cleared the stage, and I thought it was time to go home, or at least hit the ice cream parlor. I started packing up the video equipment and searching for the door. But no one else got up. Apparently, there was one last item listed on the program called, I kid you not: “The PowerPoint Presentation.” If I had only listened to my inner child's voice, I would have run for the exit like it was a fire drill. What followed was painful. First, the teacher who had chosen to use PowerPoint didn't have it set up right, so one out of 3 images just showed up with a plain color on screen instead of an image. After a few minutes, he went over to fix the problem. Then it started all over again-one slide at a time with few creative transitions-and what appeared to be every single photo taken of the children in the last year. There were three different angles of the same kid drawing in art class, 10 of each in their pajamas, 20 of the kids getting on the school bus, 50 of them eating lunch, 75 of them raising their hands in class, 100 of them on each of several class trips, 200 of them watching a clown on stage, 300 of them in the talent show-OK, you get the PowerPoint!
Then it was over. The kids cheered along with the remaining parents who hadn't passed out. After guzzling a gallon of water, I realized that “show” was the by-product of digital photography. The photos don't cost a cent, they can easily be collected, and they don't have to be edited. Plus, there will always be those who choose PowerPoint to do the work that should be done by an inexpensive slide show program. Next time, I hope they call it something like “The Year in Review: Literally.” Grade for the PowerPoint presentation, unedited slides, and teacher that put us through the ordeal: C-
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