No camera please!

On Christmas Eve, I was invited to a birthday dinner do of a friend at Savvy’s Brasserie in Bandar.

First thing first. Savvy’s Brasserie is located at Wisma Hjh Fatimah, just above TFC. It is a nice quaint place; it was made to look like a traditional English pub. Faux solid timbers were used for décor and the windows were made from wrought iron frames, with diamond-shaped patterns adorning the window glass. I could not believe such a place would exist on a first floor of a building in the middle of Bandar! It reminded me of this pub in the middle of Merseyside that I was taken to when I worked in UK earlier this year. Thus, Savvy’s Brasserie made me feel as if I was really in UK. Being Christmas Eve, I could not help thinking that it would be snowing outside. The only thing that the place was missing was a fireplace; real or not would not matter! The brasserie served western food and I would strongly encourage you to try their grill section.

Back to the topic of this post. There were 14 of us at the dining table and more than half of us actually brought cameras. Inevitably, while waiting for our food to be served, most of us were happily snapping away. With this, it would definitely bring some noise; what with some people going from one person to another to take photos with and some people asking to see the photos just taken. I could not help thinking if digital cameras actually made a lot of difference on dinner table manners and etiquette. Try to cast your mind back to the time when we used film camera. I would not think we would take as many photos as we would with a digital camera. With a film camera, we would have to wait and pay for the photos to be printed, hence that probably stopped us from snapping away at the dining table. With a digital camera, we are able to review the photos immediately after they were taken and if we are not happy with them, we could just delete them and take some more. And sometimes it is hard for me to understand that usually more than one camera are used to take the same picture; why can’t we copy and share? Now there are many websites that provide online albums, plus the many social networking websites where one could post the pictures for everyone to see. And what’s up with the habit of wanting to review every picture immmediately after it is taken?

I am an owner of a digital camera and yeah, I sometimes bring my camera onto the dining table. However, I do not agree that the enjoyment of having dinner with friends and family should be spoilt by constant firing off flashes. And perhaps, one day we will see a ‘No cameras please!’ sign posted along side ‘No mobile phones please!’ at restaurants.