Removing the People

There is an app called Stillgram that allows you to remove all people from the photo WHILE YOU ARE TAKING THE PICTURE. Did that require all caps? Sort of.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve patiently waited, annoying my family, for a space to clear before taking a picture so I could have it without people in it. The flower door of the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp comes to mind. We all aged about 300 years before I could get a moment without a random woman absentmindedly talking to her friend in front of the door. But that is the joy of taking a picture. You wait for the perfect moment and swoop in.

This app allows you to point your phone camera at the Trevi fountain, snap a picture, and have it look like you’re the only human on earth. Oh, and if you want to pay for the premium feature, you can position your loved one in the frame, tap on them, and keep them in the picture, erasing out everyone else. It’s kind of brilliant, but it’s kind of scary. It’s rewriting reality in the moment.

I’m not sure how that is different from coming home and editing everyone out of an image. I know it is possible to do this with software. Or how it is different from any sort of image manipulation, which has been going on long before modern software, such as airbrushing.

I don’t know. I guess because with all the other options, there is an original that reflects what your eye saw in the moment. It can’t capture the mood or the long wait for a plaza to clear. It can’t show all of the angles you didn’t choose or the outtakes. But this app takes us one more step from reality. And I don’t know how I feel about it.

What about you?