A Plague of Tablets Spoil Something Truly Special.

[MineralMan]

A couple of months ago, my wife and I read about a ceremony, where a WWII samurai sword (katana) that had been taken as a souvenir by a U.S. Sailor shortly after the war would be returned to the family of the man it belonged to. The Japanese family had flown to the U.S. to participate in the ceremony, which was a project of the St. Paul/Nagasaki sister city organization.

The owner of the sword had not died in the war, but later. The sword was part of a pile of weapons confiscated from Japanese soldiers after the war was over, so it was not a battle trophy or anything like that. The USN sailor had retrieved it, with permission, from a pile of such items while in Nagasaki sometime after the war.

Anyhow, my wife and I attended the transfer ceremony, which was done in both English and Japanese, and was quite touching. We were standing in the back of a crowded room, with the ceremony taking place at the front of the room.

Here's the problem: We didn't get to see the actual transfer at all. Dozens of people in the audience were holding up iPads to take photos of the ceremony. Dozens. All my wife and I could see were iPad screens, each with an image of the ceremony on them, but too far away to really see it happen. The ceremony took place on a raised platform and everyone seated in the room could have seen it. Except for all of those iPads being held over the heads of people in the audience.

So, we didn't see the ceremony. We heard the speeches, including a halting, emotional one from the old USN Sailor, who handed the katana off to the son of the person who had carried it while serving in the Japanese Army. We saw the people, individually, but we did not see the ceremony.

Please folks: If you're at something like this with your iPad, remember that there are people behind you. An iPad is just the right size to block those people's view of the thing you are trying to photograph. Please don't do that. Watch the proceedings with your eyes and capture the image in your memory. That's what the other people there are trying to do, and could, if you were not intent on taking a photo to share on Facebook.

There is a plague of tablets. I'm very sorry to see that. Very sorry, indeed, since they keep me from seeing what I came to see.

Maybe I'll see one of the photos on Facebook...

[Warpy]

1. Self important clods will always fuck everything up

It's just a given in this farce we call life.

[MineralMan]

2. Well, using an iPad as a camera is pretty obtrusive

in a situation like that, I think. A regular camera doesn't block the view in the same way.

[Warpy]

3. Then it would have been a phalanx of the biggest oafs in the crowd

grabbing the front row and blocking everybody else's view.

It's always going to be something.

[MineralMan]

5. I suppose. We should have gotten there early enough

to get one of those front row seats, I suppose.

[CTyankee]

13. Thank you! I was trying to find a way to take pics of art in situ for my Tuscany trip and

found that the Ipad had everything I wanted in one device (keypad I could use, camera, use with wi-fi in little towns of Tuscany, etc). When I actually handled the thing the way I would have to in order to take the pic, I said" Enough! Too much!" I have figured out a way to do a "virtual" art tour and put my stuff on DU that way. I can use my dinky cellphone camera to take these more casual "in situ" shots of the museum/church and surroundings to get the "feel" of the trip...

[kentauros]

4. Maybe get one of those RC helicopters with a camera mount,

and fly it directly over the heads of the iProduct operators while recording with the helicopter's camera

[MineralMan]

6. That's next, I suppose. You can buy those now pretty

inexpensively. I suppose I'll start seeing personal photo drones next. I'm not looking forward to it, frankly.

[Baitball Blogger]

7. Sounds like it calls for new IPad ettiquette.

[MineralMan]

9. Won't work. Nobody pays any attention to

etiquette these days. Despite that, I'm writing an etiquette book right now that will be an ebook soon. It's an etiquette for the 21st century, and will have a couple of paragraphs about intrusive tablet photography.

[MineralMan]

10. Here's another example, this time with kids:

[MineralMan]

8. Here's an example of this phenomenon:

[WinkyDink]

11. I hear you loud and clear. I've been upset since the advent of phones with cameras at concerts. PUT

YOUR DA*N ARMS DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BlueJazz]

12. You've punched a raw nerve with me. I was raised to be very polite and courteous to others.

That was from my Mother. My dad was rather "Don't take any shit from people"

I've actually said many times "You stick that thing in front of my face one more time and it better sprout wings cause it's gonna fly"

I've paid money to see and enjoy the event, play, horserace or whatever and I'll not have somebody steal the experience just because they have zero manners.

[geek tragedy]

14. Camera phones are better anyways.

People assume because it's a bigger screen that it's a better photo. Fools .

[Journeyman]

15. ". . . preserve your memories; they're all that's left you" . . .

Bookends, Paul Simon

[Fumesucker]

16. First world problem

Don't get me wrong, it's annoying.

But in the overall scheme of things that are wrong with our lives it's merely a bagatelle.