Cameras: A Link to the Past and Future

"I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything." This quote, originally uttered by author John Steinbeck in 1962, stands out to me because it really shows how with the rise of cameras a sense of innocence was lost. In the time before cameras the only visual a person could recieve of a foreign lands and its people was the one created in his or her head. It left people to see what they wanted to see and leave things the way they wanted to see them. With the birth of cameras, it was no longer up to the everyday people as to what people from Greenland wore to keep warm, for example. Society began to lose that old world feel and seemed to be on the cusp of a total technological revolution. As true with many new inventions, the camera left people bewildered, yet filled with wonderment. It was in many ways a portal to the future and the past. It connected people to ancesters and cities that were before one's time while keeping people looking forward to the other technological breakthroughs that have had people marvelling for the past century.