During our family gatherings, my mother loves taking pictures on her iPhone; my father rarely takes pictures unless prompted by my mother (we need photos of her too). I find myself somewhere between: I make an effort to take pictures when seeing family and friends, though I dislike pulling up the camera.

My parents represent two distinct camps: the log and live camps. The loggers are the people taking pictures all the time to record their lives; the livers think that picture-taking ruins the experience and take no pictures at all.

Loggers have been around forever: keeping a diary, making realistic paintings and collecting objects are all forms of logging. Famous examples of logs include the diaries of Samuel Pepys (17th century) and Anne Frank (1944-1942). Serious photo loggers have only been around since the 1950s, when the instant camera arrived.

However, the contrast between the logging and living mentalities is nowhere as stark as within photography, especially today: anyone with a smartphone can easily become a photo logger, so refusing to take pictures is more of a statement. While there have always been loggers, we can’t really speak of anti-loggers outside the context of photography, which is why I’ll focus on photography for this post.

There are many kinds of loggers. The forefather of the logger is the Japanese tourist on the hop-on-hop-off bus with one Nikon on each hip. Now that anyone can take high-quality pictures with their phone, there are more loggers than ever.

Loggers say they take pictures to remember precious moments with families and friends. Since pictures can be made more objective than e.g. diary entries or paintings they offer an easier way to share experiences. However, this doesn’t seem like the only motivation for logging – this doesn’t explain why everyone needs to take their own picture of the turkey at the Christmas dinner.

Loggers often reach for the camera when bored: if you’re fully attentive, you won’t think of taking pictures. Sometimes logging is rooted in a discomfort with doing nothing. Susan Sontag’s remark about tourists also holds for loggers:

Using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work‑driven feel about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to be having fun. They have something to do that is like a friendly imitation of work: they can take pictures.

Logging is also a way to appropriate an unfamiliar situation. When taking a picture, the photographer decides on what to include and exclude, and this feels much like conquering something unknown.

In fact, the photographer exerts tremendous power over the social situation: they can make everyone pause with what they’re doing, move their chairs and put on an awkward smile, the whole affair taking up to several minutes. During the act of photography, the photographer is the centre of attention.

Livers, often the subjects of the loggers, are best understood as anti-loggers.

The livers say that excessive picture-taking ruins the experience, both for the photographer and the subject. Taking good pictures is a hassle: you need to pull up your camera, compose the image, tell everyone to look natural, and redo steps two and three until satisfaction. The subjects grow tired of posing, especially if there are several loggers around – as there often are, since everyone needs their own picture.

More worryingly, however, is how loggers disrupt the social dynamics. If logging becomes the dominating social activity, then a moment is valuable only insofar as it leads to a good photo – picture-taking creates a strong Hawthorne effect. In logging, the logger might also signal that they’re bored, whether it’s true or not: the subjects cannot tell whether you’re scrolling social media or checking whether your cousin blinked. Either way, you’re distancing yourself from the others.

In its purest form, I view logging as immortalising experience, making joyful moments accessible to future selves and future generations. The fundamental tension between loggers and livers has to do with delaying pleasure: loggers prefer savouring a joyful experience for longer, while livers swallow it in one go – it’s like the difference between having americano and caffè normale.

However, I agree with livers that picture-taking should be made less invasive. Loggers can share photos among themselves, rather than having subjects pose for three different cameras; they can agree on norms for when picture-taking is allowed. When seeing friends, I only do portraits just as we’re about to say goodbye – this is my way of indicating that our meeting wasn’t about producing pictures.

A viewfinder introduces a distance. And the logger cannot close the distance by passing their phone or camera around the table and showing the pictures: this distracts from the other social activity. Everyone wants to look at the photos, for photos are attractors of attention. The photographer, then, needs to wield their power carefully.