“Barthes is often mis­quoted, erro­neously by the way, as hav­ing stated that from one to as much as four per­cent of the weight of the world’s mate­r­ial pos­ses­sions are pho­tographs. An absurd num­ber, for what is a pho­to­graph — a slip of paper, an amal­ga­ma­tion of pix­els — when com­pared to a coat, a horse, a house, or a gun. Yet prac­ti­cally this cal­cu­la­tion is far too mod­est a model, for they hold down our walls, stiffen our wal­lets, and fat­ten our resolve, never mind all those pho­tographs we’ve born before and can con­jure now, stark and embell­ished, by our machi­na­tions. The stag­ger­ing toil of aug­men­ta­tion is mer­ci­less. This per­sis­tent enti­tle­ment to abduct time and appro­pri­ate like­ness serves best to con­dense our dreams, com­pound our mem­o­ries, and sen­ti­men­tal­ize fears. Trapped in this way, por­ten­tous and latent, aleator­i­cal and dis­crim­i­nate, muti­nous and inim­i­cal, light will lie, always in wait. It’s not the see­ing that we care so very much about, but the beings seen and the grav­ity of being seen again.”