Digital Aging

Like a lot of historic marvels, the Alhambra in Granada swarms with visitors, and offers as much in the way of people watching as it does in the way of Moorish splendor. To best record the splendor, you are advised to take aim the camera up. Otherwise you will end up with pictures of your fellow visitors—taking pictures. What most people do at the Alhambra, most of the time, is take pictures. The digital camera, of course, allows this. Maybe the digital camera even expects this of you. With a digital camera, you can shoot hundreds of pictures, and later select a decent picture from the comfort of home, which picture you may then send to family and friends as evidence of your experience. In fact your family and friends, viewing the subject on a screen, are having much the same experience you did, maybe a better one—they are probably viewing the subject on a larger screen, without the distraction of fellow tourists taking pictures. All of which is simply to say that although the digital camera makes recording life easier, it makes actually living life harder. Socrates suggested that the unexamined life is not worth living. That may be true, but the over-examined life is not really lived.

I don’t have pictures of the Capilla Real, the Catholic jewel in Granada’s crown, because photography is not permitted in the Capilla Real. This might make for a more enhanced visit—an experience rather than a recording of an experience—but for the fact that, perhaps precisely because photography is not permitted, visitors tend to tour the chapel at a brisk, noisy pace. It’s as if, since the wonders of the Capilla Real cannot be photographed, they are of little value. Granted, the Capilla Real does not hold a votive candle to the Alhambra, but again, the contemporary tourist is not known to be selective with shots. Visiting the Capilla Real, a body almost gets to wishing photography were permitted, so that folks might slow down, and be a little quieter.

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Charlie Geer is the author of the novel “Outbound: The Curious Secession of Latter-Day Charleston.” His work has appeared in Tin House, The Sun, Bloomsbury Magazine, and The Southern Review.