Snapseeded: "are smartphones killing memories?"...seeing like Monet?...and Arch views

Perhaps you've seen this piece, from a couple of days ago on the BBC:

If you're interested in mobile photography at all, whether as a part-time hobby or as an addictive avocation, these seven minutes are worth your time.

I've been thinking about this for while now, even before I dove into the iPhone-world...

There is so much to be said (ad nauseam) for 'being in the moment'...and yet so much to be gained from being able to document the day-to-day with such ease...

Perhaps you've heard the expression from Wordsworth--yes, the 18th-19th-c. poet, who spoke of the 'inward eye, the bliss of solitude'...the power of visual memories...

Does constant photographing enhance or diminish our capacity to truly look and remember, to learn how to see? There's the 'professional seeing' that photographers learn...but then there's the purely personal gaze--for one's own enjoyment and thoughts...With the constant distraction of documenting and (over)sharing, are we remembering what we lose when we only think we're gaining? Is our 'inward eye' morphing into a 3- or 4-inch screen we hold in the palm of our hands? When there's only the 'joy' of sharing on social networks, is there any room for the 'bliss of solitude?'

In our world of constant snapshots, we need to remember how to gaze purposefully, not just fleetingly.

Then again, I think of the photographers and artists who are using the medium of smartphone-cameras as a way to visually meditate, to freeze their deep gazes...or to keep them alive...

I'm reminded of the series of paintings that Monet created--the façades of the Rouen Cathedral, and the water lilies at Giverny. Those have become so well-known, clichéd even--but how many people today are able to look at one scene so deeply, over and over again? Obsession is a word that might be used, yes, but not gratuitous...

A couple of years ago, I went to St. Louis for a work conference. It was just a few days, but I had the mornings and late afternoons to myself--I found myself going for runs in the park along the Mississippi River, beneath the Gateway Arch. It's such an incredible structure--despite its visual familiarity, its audacity of form is just amazing--standing underneath its deceptive simplicity--no photograph can translate its scale...
...I did take a few photos, though, with my iPhone...

Recently, I've been going back to those scenes; as I've become more familiar and more comfortable with different photo-apps, I've been wanting to play with them--looking back and seeing the geometry and scale of the Arch and trying to, well, 'translate' the structure in different ways. Call it an obsession, if you want. But Monet's way of seeing--and I'm not trying to compare my edits to his work--but just trying to learn from how he saw...and how, even without brush, palette, and canvas, one can still learn how to see...and how the smartphone-camera can be involved...