Take yer picture, guv?

Image from Memoto

When I was in my twenties I was a great photography enthusiast and though it was impractical with my usual SLR, I always had the intention (never fulfilled) of getting a pocketable camera which I would have with me at all times to capture those unexpected moments.

Now, of course, most of us have this capability in the form of camera phones. Being able to take a photo at any time is a given assumption. When I broke my shoulder a couple of months ago, apart from asking after my well being/should they call an ambulance, the thing passers-by said most often was 'You should take a picture [of the paving slab]' - the assumption was that of course I would have then means to do so about my person.

There is a more extreme possibility, though - so called lifelogging. Take, for example, the soon to be available Memoto camera. At a mere $279 this is a tiny camera you clip onto yourself and it takes pictures every 30 seconds, which are then uploaded to an online store/memory structuring site.

My knee-jerk reaction was that this would be rather good - not really in the sense of lifelogging (who would really want to record '4 hours sitting in front of computer with occasional visit to the loo and to get a coffee'?), but rather so that those occasional moments when you do want a picture, you wouldn't have to do anything about it, it would just happen. But then reality set in. What are the chances that the thing you desperately wanted to capture would be in the 30 second gap, or that the ideal snap would be a) covered up by your jacket or b) taken at angle of 27.6 degrees?

So I probably won't be going down that route. But something inside me still desperately wants one...

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