School Concert photographers and outdated thinking patterns

School Concert

I do not understand the school photographer's business case for digital images at all.

See when one is attending a concert in the school - we cannot take snaps / videos since it will disturb the children. So obviously we as parents refrain from doing so. Hence the photographer gets to choose the amount he charges for a snap and normally IMO it tends to be exorbitant for no reason.

Still most parents wanting the memories do shell out the required amount. And these are for the hard copies mostly 6 x 8 prints.

Last year it happened the same way - we paid for the prints and yet the photographer did not want to part with the digital snaps. Why ?? This is the reasoning I do not understand. He said he would charge something like 100 Rs per digital copy. Seriously ????  I mean what do the parents want the snaps for ? To share - most likely on fb / flickr and for memories. It is not like these are National Geographic snaps that one has to worry about digital rights to them .. correct ?

So the parents obviously - just scan the damn snaps and share it. And whose loss is that ? The photographer's of course. I would think for a nominal amount he could get a good extra chunk of money for the same thing. But seems the reasoning is archaic - if we do get the digital copies , we can make umpteen copies and put him out of business. Really ???? Doesn't that sound silly ?? For one thing if I get a good scan - I can make any number of copies. Yes they may not be the same as the original but they will be good enough. Most concert snaps one can rarely enlarge after all so the RAW image quality is not required.

And who these days makes that many prints anywayz ? Not many I would think. Finally whoever gets back to that photographer for concert snaps ? Nobody ... !!!! So after a period of time [ if at that ] he would delete the whole lot and it is such a waste.

In the the previous nursery school - the photographer only put those snaps that we had paid money for (prints) and charged for the CD.  I wish this year this person did that - instead he is stuck in the same medieval thoughts.

I did speak to the school office about it and they are also steeped in age old ideas of rights and ability to make multiple copies off the scanned images. These cannot be viewed in the same light as -ves. We have moved way beyond that in the internet age. Although going by their behavior we are still stuck about 30 years back.

In these days of mobile snaps and their prevalence who would upload a 5.8 MB file on fb ?? Looks outdated thinking is not restricted to politics alone !

Immunity to selling

No matter how smart one thinks one is - I don't think we can be completely immune to psychological bias.  Ads by their nature are very persuasive and employ many psychological tricks.

Some of course we know - that diamonds are so expensive simply because of the De Beers cartel. I always watch ads about diamonds with a wry expression. Same for toothpaste ads - they advocate paste that completely lines the toothbrush one end to another. Fact; a pea sized amount is enough.  What about the "five o'clock shadow" term coined by a razor company to sell their razors ?

And then again - Santa Claus's red and white colors - a re-invention by Coca-Cola. Chips and watching sports, two  Alka-Seltzer tablets in a glass when only one would do. I enjoyed this as a kid, there was a cartoon character in the ad :-) Only later realized the significance of the 2 tablets which bubble when dropped in water ! :)

One would think with all this - we are armed to the teeth against ads and their persuasiveness.

Yet .... couple of incidents made me realize that even with all this information, it is not easy to dodge psychology.

1. Consider the anchoring effect [#].Recently when I went shopping for shoes - the ones marked higher I mentally laughed at and purchased the lower priced ones. However after coming home - I feel the shoes were not worth even that lower price ! Got conned by the oldest retailing trick ! :)

2. Like most people - I get birthday mails from my bank, services I have used, retailers etc. Mostly I just ignore them. After all I do know it is not so difficult to program a mail to be sent on the appropriate day. It is just a scheduled event after all ! :)

My relationship with a particular NGO has been a long term one. So this year, I was totally taken aback to get a call in person from them on my birthday to wish me !

Now ; I know all the cynical reasons they made the call ; yet that did not stop me from feeling pleased at the personal touch ! LOL..... Perhaps next year I will not be susceptible but for now ---- can you see the irony ? I am happy at being remembered by some unknown person who probably got a reminder on his desktop/mail and proceeded to call me as part of his job function !!!! While they were in  no danger at being dropped by me - I will not be dissociating with them anytime soon ! ;)

I have reluctantly realized - it is fallacy to think to one is immune to selling tricks ! :)

This is no time to be a cynic

Like most Indians - I too feel the anguish of Nirbhaya's death. 

Her death is one in many that get reported. There are those numerous nameless others who suffer this crime and it never goes beyond the victim's knowledge and the perpetrators smug knowing and harrassment.  Many a time the reaction to such incidents is a tired cynical outlook and a "Things never change" attitude. This is no excuse. To be blunt this is not the time to be cynical. Being cynical is to be safe and removed from the feelings of anger.

This case pierced the sense of apathy towards such crimes; and I am thankful that it has. As I go through life I have realized one never knows when the tipping point will occur and what will trigger it. The only thing one can do is contribute even in the face of impossible odds.  You see we need a trickle before it can become a flood. We need the fury against each and every crime. We need the sense of injustice when people misuse their power. We need a sense of outrage against every person who thinks to violate women with impunity.

Yes there is a part of one's mind that knows - the momentum may be lost eventually.  The media will move on to other issues. That does not mean we stop. We never would have won freedom if our freedom fighters had given up after the first war of independence. 

And sometimes ... sometimes it takes one incident to turn the simmering wrath into flash ; history is full of such cases.

• Roop Kanwar's death which lead to the enactment of Sati related law
• Montgomery Bus Boycott - that lead to the civil rights movement
• Rodney King's beating 

Change is never easy.  Change for the better - even more so. 

So ......... Contribute. Make demands. Ask for better implementation of laws and quicker justice.

More importantly look around you and inside yourself - change the underpinning inside that devalues women routinely. Change that sense of entitlement that tells you - it is okay to abuse and then abscond from responsibility of heinous actions by saying "She asked for it". This change goes for both genders. Teach your children respect and empathy.

Make that change - In every house; by each person. There can be no better eulogy than this. An eulogy of action.

Let her death not be in vain. And no - this is no time to be cynical.

RIP Nirbhaya, Amaanat, Damini

Just a 'little' wisdom

Sometimes I think that I wish I had the wisdom ( slight though it may be ) that I now have , when I was younger.  May be my choices would have been different and perhaps I would not have taken some paths that did not work out for me. Life certainly would not have been the same. I would have made fewer mistakes may be ??

But then it I think again .... if I had this knowledge then .. I never would have been foolish .. never would have taken risks ; risks that , only being young and the-world-is-mine-attitude would have made me take. Risks that are incomprehensible to my current self.  I never would have experienced the dizzy emotional highs and lows that were so much part of me then.

So I think .. that while age brings wisdom .. it also tells me ...it does reduce one's risk appetite ... and this is doubly so when you have a baby .. and that baby's future to think of ! :)

And so - when I view a youth ( guy or gal - does it matter ) zooming past on a bike texting / talking on their mobile I just hope their fairy god-mother keeps them safe ( and the others around them too ! ). No I never did that [ hey we had no mobiles then ! ;) ]  but it makes me wonder how life allowed me to sashay through with nary a scratch.