Why Did Malia Obama Take Photos of Inaugration?

At the presidential inauguration in 2008, Barack Obama's daughters took out their digital cameras and snapped photos of the historic scene.

At the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, the American basketball players whipped out their video camcorders while walking and waving to fans.

At the Seinfeld reunion on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Jason Alexander and Julia Louis Dreyfus snapped photos of each other on the set of Jerry's apartment.

In each case, there were hundreds (if not thousands) of high-end cameras capturing every moment. Yet, Malia Obama, LeBron James, and Jason Alexander all wanted their own photos from their exact point-of-view.

This happens to us lay folk when we travel. Everyone takes pictures of the Eiffel Tower in Paris even though thousands of professional photos are one click away on the web. I wasn't aware this tendency held strong at the highest levels of celebrity, folks whose entire lives are photographed and documented by the media.

The power of ownership over something; the power of personal perspective.

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Some links:

• Penelope Trunk on how to take intelligent risks.
• Will Wilkinson's awesome self-defense, for political philosophy geeks only.
• Ross Rosenbaum on the banality of narcissism.
• Amazing time-lapse photography of fog over the San Francisco bay."The Unseen Sea."
• Steven Moody commented on an older post of mine about asking yourself what's remained constant (as opposed to obsessing about what's changed): "I consider my need for change to include work, location, and intimate relations; it's crucial for me to have 1-2 of these remain constant, while I'll get bored if all three are constant."