He shouted loudly, "Ok. Jump!"
"Next pose. Back to back."
"Next pose. Hands up."
"3 pictures done."
And he handed back the phone to the one being photographed.
I watched amused at the whole sequence of play, while in queue for my own photograph.
This was in the Pura Lempuyang Temple in Bali. It was beautiful, and why not, after all, it was 3rd on the list of the "Top 10 most Instagrammable locations" in Bali as per Buzzfeed.
Just one catch though. The place looked nothing like what it looked like on Instagram.
We scratched our heads and stood there, wondering where the water had gone. The Instagram pics clearly showed a temple gateway and its stark, unambiguous reflection in water. Except, there was no water!
And yet, people were queuing up to take a picture.
If there's anything I have learnt staying in Singapore now, it is that, if there is a queue, you join at the end - it does not matter if it's for a lottery in the mall, for sweet potato fries at a less known Japanese discount store, or just for the washroom. We love queues and join we must. So, we joined the queue and patiently bode our time, watching this amusing sequence of photoshoots.
A young priest from the temple sat in front of the gate, his supporter holding a huge umbrella over his head. The next-in-line would walk up to him, handover the camera and then walk to the gate. Once there, the priest would start shouting and guiding them through the shoot. 3 pictures. 3 poses. Done. Next?
When it was finally our turn and we handed him our phone was when we realized what a maestro this priest was! He quickly took the phone, and with quick deft of hand, placed a mirror exactly at half the camera length. Lo and behold, you got your water!
Before we knew it, we were following his orders. Jump! Sit back-to-back! Hands in the air!
Done. Next?
Here's what the actual place is and what it looks like after this genius does his bit:
I walked back so amused by this.
I was, without any doubt, amazed by this priest and his little mirror innovation that helped so many tourists create great, social-media worthy pics and a seamless experience that they will remember for a while.
But, here's what amused me the most - our love for showing off on social media has penetrated our lives so much, that we are at peace with images of ourselves at places that do not even exist the way we show them!
There's a Greek word for the this - Kalopsia, meaning the delusion of things appearing more beautiful than they are in reality. And this is exactly what this was.
There was no water. There was no reflection. But, do a Google search for Pura Lempunyang, Bali and all pictures will show you these beautiful images of people jumping in the air and their act caught in a reflection. In water that does not exist. All thanks to the brilliant young priest there!
I am not sure why this bothered me so much. It's not like we never lied before on social media. I mean, filters are nothing but colorful ways of hiding how bad we photograph. I think what rankled me was the fact that we were trying to add something non-existent to the photograph.
At some level, I thought the reality in photos was sacrosanct. If a picture exists, the reality exists. Except, it doesn't any more. So, now thanks to social media, you cannot believe photos or voice or video or claims or tweets or experiences or resumes or profiles or anything anymore!
And that hurts, doesn't it?
I remember walking back hurt, telling my partner, "What will happen when they discover our photos 3000 years later? They'll think there was water here. And they'll search. But they won't get any traces. And they'll go back blaming their generation saying, 'our ancestors were so smart, they had such clean water here, but we didn't preserve it and we lost their hardwork.'"
We are smarter than our progeny can imagine. We invented places that didn't exist!
Having said that, did I post the picture on Instagram? Of course, I did. With a good caption too.
Will I get many likes on the pic? I hope so! I am, after all, driven by the delight of seeing the red heart notification.
Anyway, that's all I had to say.
Oh wait, don't forget to like my post.
"Next pose. Back to back."
"Next pose. Hands up."
"3 pictures done."
And he handed back the phone to the one being photographed.
I watched amused at the whole sequence of play, while in queue for my own photograph.
This was in the Pura Lempuyang Temple in Bali. It was beautiful, and why not, after all, it was 3rd on the list of the "Top 10 most Instagrammable locations" in Bali as per Buzzfeed.
Just one catch though. The place looked nothing like what it looked like on Instagram.
We scratched our heads and stood there, wondering where the water had gone. The Instagram pics clearly showed a temple gateway and its stark, unambiguous reflection in water. Except, there was no water!
And yet, people were queuing up to take a picture.
If there's anything I have learnt staying in Singapore now, it is that, if there is a queue, you join at the end - it does not matter if it's for a lottery in the mall, for sweet potato fries at a less known Japanese discount store, or just for the washroom. We love queues and join we must. So, we joined the queue and patiently bode our time, watching this amusing sequence of photoshoots.
A young priest from the temple sat in front of the gate, his supporter holding a huge umbrella over his head. The next-in-line would walk up to him, handover the camera and then walk to the gate. Once there, the priest would start shouting and guiding them through the shoot. 3 pictures. 3 poses. Done. Next?
When it was finally our turn and we handed him our phone was when we realized what a maestro this priest was! He quickly took the phone, and with quick deft of hand, placed a mirror exactly at half the camera length. Lo and behold, you got your water!
Before we knew it, we were following his orders. Jump! Sit back-to-back! Hands in the air!
Done. Next?
Here's what the actual place is and what it looks like after this genius does his bit:
I walked back so amused by this.
I was, without any doubt, amazed by this priest and his little mirror innovation that helped so many tourists create great, social-media worthy pics and a seamless experience that they will remember for a while.
But, here's what amused me the most - our love for showing off on social media has penetrated our lives so much, that we are at peace with images of ourselves at places that do not even exist the way we show them!
There's a Greek word for the this - Kalopsia, meaning the delusion of things appearing more beautiful than they are in reality. And this is exactly what this was.
There was no water. There was no reflection. But, do a Google search for Pura Lempunyang, Bali and all pictures will show you these beautiful images of people jumping in the air and their act caught in a reflection. In water that does not exist. All thanks to the brilliant young priest there!
I am not sure why this bothered me so much. It's not like we never lied before on social media. I mean, filters are nothing but colorful ways of hiding how bad we photograph. I think what rankled me was the fact that we were trying to add something non-existent to the photograph.
At some level, I thought the reality in photos was sacrosanct. If a picture exists, the reality exists. Except, it doesn't any more. So, now thanks to social media, you cannot believe photos or voice or video or claims or tweets or experiences or resumes or profiles or anything anymore!
And that hurts, doesn't it?
I remember walking back hurt, telling my partner, "What will happen when they discover our photos 3000 years later? They'll think there was water here. And they'll search. But they won't get any traces. And they'll go back blaming their generation saying, 'our ancestors were so smart, they had such clean water here, but we didn't preserve it and we lost their hardwork.'"
We are smarter than our progeny can imagine. We invented places that didn't exist!
Having said that, did I post the picture on Instagram? Of course, I did. With a good caption too.
Will I get many likes on the pic? I hope so! I am, after all, driven by the delight of seeing the red heart notification.
Am I hypocrite? Oh well, like Oscar Wilde says, My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.
Anyway, that's all I had to say.
Oh wait, don't forget to like my post.
Oh My God. I had no clue myself! I have seen so many versions of this and always marveled at how beautiful and perfect this reflection was!
ReplyDeleteBut I wonder myself sometimes - this is still a whole new dimension of unreal but even the filters and the saturation adjustments and those perfect angles to make the scene seem better than it is? Technically, all a farce yes? But I guess it's alright at times, as long that thin line between what's true and what's an aberration doesn't fade out completely for us!
P.S. Lovely shot, I did like it on your Instagram page too :D
It is a very beautiful place! Even without the water :D
DeleteI agree about the filters - I mean, it's ok to make an existing pic more beautiful. But to add elements that don't exist is not fair! It's like photoshopping your head with celebs.
I did see your comment on Insta! I so wanted to put a link to this post there, so people know the real story! :D