Shutter To Think

I’m always tickled by the shutter noise my digital camera and cell phone makes when I take a picture. It’s hilarious to me that the designers thought it necessary to add the analog sound. It would be like adding an engine revving sound to an electric car to give drivers the sense that there’s massive horse power cranking under the engine; As if that could completely hide the fact that they can only do 80mph and have to charge it up along with their cell phone every night.

I’m pro electric car and I’m also pro digital photography. I’m not pro adding superfluous features to make these products conform to some notion of the technology they replaced. If you’re going to go that way then why not add a “rewind” switch and a “forward” wheel. We could go all the way with the silliness and make SD memory cards in the shape of film and have people drop off their “film” to one hour photo shops. Or maybe your photo printer should come with a cardboard “one hour photo” mobile kiosk.

Facetiousness aside, pretty soon most young people won’t remember that shutter sound. To them it will be the sound that digital cameras make…for some reason. I’ll either have to explain the sound to them or pretend that I don’t know what that sound means either. While I’m at it I can pretend I don’t get the Lady Gaga-Madonna comparisons and can’t remember when rappers used to say “rahhhh!”

I wrote the preceding text and then hoped on a subway where God provided the button to this blog. I saw a guy playing Pong on his Iphone.