Some cultures long avoided being photographed, because they believed the camera would steal their soul.
It took the rest of us much longer to realize they were right.
It took the rest of us much longer to realize they were right.
In Holland we have a saying, what do you bring it your house is burning down? And most people said my photos. This was before the digital age and cloud obviously. We take photos because we care. Stuffing them into everyone else's face has also been a thing at birthday parties but outside that not so much.
First, for most of us in daily life, once you know you are being photographed you exit any context you were in and enter the new “I am being photographed” context. In some important way, you are stolen from the world around you for a period of time. Your body is still present, but you might be thinking about how this all would look at any later time. This does not apply when photography is specifically arranged by you (common in analog era), or if you are unaware of being a subject photographed (but there may be other concerns about that[0]).
Second, a photo/likeness of you is a proxy allowing other people to relate to you. Keeping in mind that we only ever relate to images/models that we build of each other in our minds (we have no “direct access” to other people), in this case a photo is a shallow (there is little other information than appearance) but weirdly high fidelity (for sighted people) model of you. This is not an issue if the photo is kept just by people you know (common in analog era) or after you are dead, but otherwise if published[1] it means people can somehow relate to “you” without the actual-you knowing or having met them. Some people may feel some sort of satisfaction from this, others it can make uncomfortable.
Third, as someone noted, soul could map to another nebulous concept: identity. It could range from problematic cases (someone pretending to be you to resell work you made) to twisted but benign (stories about people making fake profiles pretending to be successful SV employees come to mind).
[0] If you are secretly photographed[2], this can happen for a number of reasons. Some may imply a missing interaction (if that photographer could not photograph you, maybe they would talk to you instead). Some may be done with intent of sharing your photo in unknown context where again people may relate to you in specific ways that can be unpleasant (e.g., mockery).
[1] Now when generative models start to be trained on what we thought is our private photos, the idea of “published” is blurred.
[2] In most cases here “photo” can be swapped with “video”.
True, this is something that bothers me a lot too. But especially GenZ has a problem with that (surprising because they grew up with ubiquitous photography) and I see more and more parties that tape off phone cams. They are indeed wonderful.
I don't agree this doesn't apply when it is arranged though. For me that has always been awkward.
There is a vague line though. As a photographer I worry if I ask someone and they agree because they feel bad saying no (so I almost never shoot human subjects as a result). Some photographers (this is mostly arranged scenarios) on the other hand are so good at communication that they sort of help the right parts of the “soul” come forward and the subject enjoys having a record of it.
wasn't the camera doing the stealing, but the holder of the photo (facebook in this case)! And it wasn't the soul being stolen, but money!
Now, realising they were 100% right.