iPhotography in the iPhone Age

Last year, they estimate that people used their camera phones to snap some 380 billion images of cute pets, cute toddlers, beverages, food dishes, self-portraits and sundry body parts. 380 billion. Most of this photographic dreck ends up on Facebook. The upload rate is tens of millions of pics per day. Even as I wrote this, a Facebook friend shared a photo of the plastic cup he was using to consume a pint of Ranger India Pale Ale in a Columbia, Missouri bar. A white plastic cup. I've long since given up asking why. New York Times writer-photog James Estrin writes: "A photograph is no longer predominantly a way of keeping a treasured family memory or even of learning about places or people that we would otherwise not encounter. It is now mainly a chintzy currency in a social interaction and a way of gazing even further into one’s navel."