I take lots of photos whenever I travel. On flickr, I have almost 7100+ pictures of anything and everything - photos which I use mostly for my presentations and lectures and of course as a social networking tool to share with my friends and family. The photos I take captures what I'm looking at that very moment without regard much for photographic themes or follow technical guidelines as I'm not really a photographer but more needing to take a snapshot of what I'm participating in at that moment.
While taking the photo above at the Musee D'Orsay I found others who were very particular about their photos and would take many of them in rapid succession without stopping to pull themselves away from their cameras and actually enjoy the beauty of this museum - at least that was my perception of what was going on (I didn't follow these two throughout the museum but observed them for about 15 minutes on the main hall).
Thus my question on participation and/or observation. Are you one or the other or both?
Does taking photos participation in itself? A colleague of mine says yes and an argument akin to a silent learner ensued as he indicated that participation do occurs - from adding to the photographic literature to personal involvement in the learning process in a non-verbal format. I was thinking of how this relates to employees and their organisational behaviour when focus is only on one's job and not the bigger picture (my analogy to photo captures what's within the parameters of the picture's frames without seeing the whole world surrounding that frame).
What do you think of this line of thinking? Do you observe or participate the world before you?
