How too many became the enemy of too good

“You went to that gorgeous party, with all those celebrities, and you don’t have a single picture,” expostulated my neighbor, Mrs Gillibrand, an inexhaustible fount of curiosity about all that ever goes on in our community. Her exasperation was writ large on her knitted brow.

Everybody is a photographer today. Practically everybody owns a smartphone, even kids from less affluent families, and there is no smartphone worth the name that can’t take pictures. The gadgets are improving fast too, and many are developing sophisticated features to help the picture-taker.