Now, I'm not one to spread personal gossip, but at this moment-to the best of my knowledge-my friend's mother thinks of me as a potential "suitor" to wed her daughter. I know this because my future wife, Hannah, invited me on a road trip one day out to Marin.

Our mission was to visit a dilapidated old Chinese fishing village, now state park, called China Camp, in the last days before it loses its state funding. This park is near her modernist Eichler home, and her parents use it as a launch for their post-midlife crisis sailboat (called the "Nauti Forties," a British pun) and kayak. I met them there and summarily impressed upon them my charm, grace and eligibility.

(As an aside, it's a trend in my life that although I'm quite good at wooing parents, the girls themselves are never interested.)

I tell this story only because during our time at China Camp, Hannah took a great many pictures of me engaged in adventurous, manly behavior. I took pictures of the camp, and she took pictures of me taking pictures. I borrowed a kayak for a short spin (I had never kayaked before but had become a moderately able canoeist during my time in the Boy Scouts) and expertly navigated around the dock.

Greatest of all, perhaps, was a photo Hannah took of me exiting the water, droplets gently cascading down my Grecian hair, olive brown skin glowing in the sun, kayak under one arm, oar in the other, gazing triumphantly-blublockers and all-into a glorious, utopian future.

I say "perhaps" because I have yet to see it. She has, to this date, refused to post it to Facebook. I want to emphasize now that that is all I care about. I don't care about keeping it for posterity. I don't care about the photos I took of China Camp. I don't care about anything except having that photo so I can put it online and so other people can see it.

Last week, I talked about the art of photography and my creeping dread that it was transforming into a different sort of thing-not art, not photography but something unnamed. Photography these days is less about capturing pretty things and more about amassing points of data in the construction of a projected online identity. I say "points of data" because that's what they are: single moments of your life, which, combined, emulate a person (supposedly you).

The reason I want this particular photo so much is that it's an outlier for me. I actually lead a rather boring life full of drinking coffee and writing columns, so one of me looking like Odysseus would bring the whole mean (thank you AP Stats!) of my life up a few notches.

I went on Facebook today (actually, two minutes ago ... and two minutes before that) and saw something eerie: an album, by a girl I know, titled "I Only Exist In the World When I Have A Camera For Documentation?". That basically sums up my point. We exist, more and more, split into two halves-our physical selves, which get to do things like "shave" and "stumble," and our idealized, sculpted online selves. Our virtual selves are made up of the best moments and ideas of our real selves. It follows that the strength of those selves are determined by both the quality of the life being lived and the quality of the capture.

That's why digital photography has become such a powerful aspect of our lives, and why, I argue, it has become so removed from its original purpose. People aren't taking photos anymore; they're gathering samples-data. Cameras are now scientific instruments, and they aren't taking photos but rather measurements of a life. These are aggregated, en masse in albums, and blended together to roughly suggest a life being lived.

So please, for the love of god, Hannah: Post that photo!

Tags: FACEBOOK, PAINTING WITH THOUGHT, PHOTOGRAPHY