Filling in a questionnaire about digital photography–since, praise the Lord, archives and libraries are increasingly allowing visitors to take photographs of materials in their collections–I start to wax lyrical:

‘Broadly speaking, I’d say that being able to photograph has allowed me to develop my sense that the visual is as important as the verbal in written communication. I think I am quite visually responsive to text—where an older generation would just want to get at the ‘content’, my generation sees content in the physical disposition of words and their endless interactions with images.’

It’s not exactly The Who, but I think it’s true all the same: for those of us who straddle the shift from print to digital, there’s something a bit scandalous about our interest in the visual. And given the ease with which images can be shared on social media, the scandal looks set to deepen with time.