December Writing Prompt

​Cameras as historians and time machines.

What if we could take the PC card from a camera and insert it into a time machine? What if the machine could take us back to that moment?

• Would we be observers or participants in the moment?
• Could it be used to investigate crimes?
• Would there be a market for visiting historic events? Sex videos? Lost family members?

Do cameras capture your soul? Are the eyes the windows to the soul?

• If you look into a camera lens, are you vulnerable to soul snatching?
• Is the soul one thing or is it divisible?  Would picture-taking be akin to stealing the loose change from your pocket; small unnoticed thefts that compound over time?
• How would this affect the “ghost” industry that attempts to photograph ghosts, apparitions, and other spiritually-derived entities? Would the spirit live in the camera?
• What would this mean for our “Selfie” generation or our surveillance culture? Is our population spiraling toward soullessness one click or traffic cam image at a time?
• Could a nefarious adept reprocess cell phones and cameras, collecting the stolen bits of soul and re-purpose them to animate golems? AI constructs? The recently dead? His/her home automation system? Ghosts? A lost lover?

About this Photo
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The photo that inspired the December prompt is a Canon AT-1 camera with a manual focus 50mm FD Macro lens. This camera spent much of its working life in the morgue at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor taking photos of ... parts, people parts.  Cameras are the ultimate historian, capturing slices of time with every click.  This particular camera did more so than most; it was the intimate historian for thousands of individuals, documenting their illness, disease progression, and ultimately, their demise. The stories it could tell…