I’ve had an iPhone for years, and I know all the things it can do, but I still mainly use it just for phone calls and occasional texting. The camera feature that seems to be a favorite among most people is something I’ve used less than a handful of times.
For whatever reason the idea of taking a picture still demands, for me, some genuine purpose as it did back in the day, when a roll of film required you to consider what was important enough to merit one of the 24 exposures you paid for at Fotomat.
That perception is continually reinforced by so many classic TV shows, when family photos were perceived as something more special than they are now. On more than one episode of The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, one of the boys would bring a date home, and they would spend part of the evening looking through the family photo album. The fact that the series was sponsored by Kodak may have influenced that choice.
And just like other families on TV, my family used to gather in the living room and look at slides projected on the wall. I can still hear the ‘click-click’ that fed each slide into the projection chamber, and feel the heat when I held my hand over the light bulb that provided the illumination. Birthdays, holidays, vacations, family gatherings, there was a moment worth remembering captured in each image. Not a single selfie in the bunch.
Granted, sometimes these presentations were not enthusiastically welcomed by guests. Even the Comfort TV era acknowledged that, though no one took it as far as Night Gallery. In one brief segment. a hippie is sent to hell and forced to spend eternity with an older couple, watching their nonstop vacation slide show.
Thankfully Rod Serling also saw more intriguing story possibilities in photography. In the Serling-scripted Twilight Zone episode “A Most Unusual Camera,” three crooks find a camera that can take pictures from the future. They soon realize the profit potential it holds, but greed quickly gets the better of them.
And in “Camera Obscura,” another Night Gallery tale, an equally greedy banker is undone by another supernatural camera.
Cameras could also solve crimes and right injustices, as in “The Night of the Hangman” on The Wild, Wild West, in which Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin, also featured in “Camera Obscura”) is able to exonerate a wrongly convicted assassin with photographic evidence. And on The Brady Bunch, Greg takes a picture that proves a receiver on his high school football team caught a touchdown pass in bounds - though he was actually aiming his camera at a cheerleader (“Click”).
Comfort TV classics remember when a single image could hold our attention for hours, and be treasured as a beloved keepsake: The boy or girl you loved in high school, who went on to marry someone else; family members who have passed on; the puppy in the box at Christmas time.
Speaking of Christmas, remember those commercials for Sears Portrait Studio? They aired year-round in the Comfort TV era but were more prominent around the holidays. A framed 8 x 10 portrait of a family member, especially kids, was a wonderful gift that would hang on a wall in the recipient’s home.
Usually Sears also provided some Christmas cards where a smaller photo could be mounted inside. Now, most people don’t even send cards anymore.
How far we’ve come. Or have we?
Such are the unavoidable repercussions of technological advancement that renders mundane what once seemed impossible. No one alive now can remember the time when it felt like a miracle to pick up a device called a telephone and speak to someone on the other side of town – or in another state.
When television came along that first generation of viewers must have been thrilled to watch a movie right in their living room – as long as the antenna was pointed just right. And now there’s a small dish mounted on the side of my home pointed toward space – space! that beams a signal into my television set, so I can watch Scooby-Doo help Sonny and Cher solve a mystery. The only constant is always change.
People take more pictures now than ever, and 99% of them are deleted shortly thereafter. What is so special about one photograph, when your phone can hold thousands of them, just as your TV can access thousands of programs – nothing much special about those either these days. The more of something that exists, the less valued it becomes.
And if you don’t believe that, consider what would happen if Thanksgiving and Christmas were held once a week instead of once a year. Would we approach them with the same anticipation and appreciation?
For me watching the old shows is like paging through a photo album, remembering happier times and interesting people, recalling the moments when we first met and wishing I could spend more time with them now – or know what they’re up to these days.
“Every time I see your face
It reminds me of the places we used to go.
But all I’ve got is a photograph
And I realize you’re not coming back anymore.”
-- Ringo Starr, “Photograph.”
Yeah, I miss The Beatles too.