I am of the age where photographs were taken with a stand alone camera and you had to be selective as you only had 24 or 36 shots on a roll of film and, having forked out for the film, you then had to fork out again to have them developed.

There was an element of delayed holiday gratification when that envelope from Truprint arrived in the post, along with fear that it would just be a series of 24 orange rectangles as you had exposed the film when loading the camera.

I take photos with my phone now of course, but not many, and I certainly don’t put much time and effort into the pose. If in the frame I am still saying “cheese” in my head while standing there and 1 in every 3 selfies has me looking at the wrong part of the phone.

What we have seen so far has blown my mind in terms of the tripods, extra lights, outfit checking and variety of poses and facial expressions needed for a photo, especially when the thing they are really taking a photo of is behind them and not moving. The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur was probably one of the worst spots for this with thousands of people trying to walk around whilst others attempted to stop them so they could take their photo. One guy even tried to get everyone off a pedestrian crossing so he could take a shot of his friend. Sure mate, we will all stand where the cars are driving if it will help!

Back in the 70s and 80s the invite to “come round and we can show you our holiday snaps” was even used in sitcoms to indicate a terrible experience. Now we are constantly sharing them with the world whether it likes it or not. Hell, we are doing it here, but I hope they are more like illustrations in a book that add something to the words.