I think I'm turning Japanese. I really think so.
My name is Sarah and I am a photoholic. There, what a relief, I’ve finally admitted that I have a problem and it’s not being able to stop taking pictures. I have taken almost 8,000 in the last 9 months. That’s at least 25 a day.
Somedays I feel better and I can making til noon without taking a picture. But then I go on binges – at Angkor Wat I took 600 in 3 days.
I think I’ve got EPS (Excessive Photography Syndrome). I’ve got all the symptoms: my dreams have a black viewfinder around them. I’m starting to get RSI in my shutter finger. I look at everything from 27 different angles, to make sure I haven’t missed ‘the’ shot. I take pictures of manholes, drain pipes, paving slabs that look arty.
I know I’m not alone. The Japanese have been famed for their EPS for years – apparently a secret virus in the 1980s was to blame. Other nations caught it with the spread of digital cameras and now these sick, sick people are everywhere.
I’ve seen them at palaces and temples: with their DSLRs, their big camera bags and their hungry, desperate eyes. What if they go home without that perfect shot? A scary thought. Better take a few more to make sure.
Some of them are worse than even me. I once saw a man take a picture of a napkin, yesterday there were a dozen people at Hong Kong Airport snapping away at nothing and – twice – I’ve seen visitors to museums actually videoing the exhibits (I feel so so sorry for the friends who have to sit through that).
I’ve had my EPS for years as mates of mine will attest, having been at the receiving end of my having to capture every last second of party footage for a posterity that, now, we all would be happy enough to remember hazily, if at all.
My symptoms have got much worse, however, since I got my DSLR, which takes photos of stunning quality. It’s digital so – in theory – I can take what I want and edit them later. But who does that? So they sit there in my computer: all those useless blurry shots of flowers, cheese, my mate’s ear. A waste of space, energy, time, life.
It’s the pressure of having to make every moment of a trip of a lifetime count that has turned me into a photo-monster.
But I don’t want to be one of those people who terrorise loved ones with hundreds of pictures. And I don’t want to be someone weighed down by the weight of these moments, nor do I want them jamming up my disk drive forever.
I need a photo-sorting minion to unsentimentally delete the chaff and keep that rare diamond that I’m convinced is somewhere in there. And I need rehab. So, friends and family, if you’re reading this, please wrestle my camera from me the minute I get home and keep it away from me for a good month while I go cold turkey. Stop me before I shoot again.
