I think we're going camerablind, and I don't know what to make of it.

Let me explain.

I took the family out for one of my little town's "concerts on the common" Monday night. (Picture New England town, postcard, bandstand, ice cream, Norman Rockwell... the works.) The local cable channel was, impressively, doing a three-camera shoot. Because they're cable access, they have limited resources, so one of the cameras was fixed, about 25 yards from the center of the stage, on the lawn.

Everyone sits at these concerts. It's a picnic kind of atmosphere, save for the kids running around. But I'll tell you, it seemed like whenever someone stood to chat with a friend, they stood right in front of that camera. Two guys stood there for a good few minutes, probably five feet away. As a TV guy, I wanted to yell something - but what? "Down in front - of the camera?" The cable access guys simply switched between their other two cams until the guys were done with their chat.

Parents pushed their kids on bikes, occasionally hitting a training wheel on one of the tripod sticks. One person stood in front of the camera and just, well, sort of examined it, as though it were a museum exhibit.

Here's another example:

The family went to DisneyWorld earlier this month. Of course, the place is lousy with cameras. But what do you do when you see someone taking a picture of their kids or friend? You stop, right? Let them have their picture. It's one of those "everyone in society does this, so we can all have our pictures" things. Same with the camcorders. Unwritten rule: when you have your camcorder rolling, I duck.

Not any more.

People just walk through the picture now. And I don't mean they walk through because you're 20 feet away and they can't tell you're trying to squeeze in the whole of Epcot into a shot of your wife. They'll walk through a standard three-foot shoot. Even if it means turning sideways. No apologies. Nothing.

I accidentally walked into a family shot. Truly - it was accidental. I was coming out of a door they were standing in front of and WHAM a flash goes off. (I had a brief taste of what it must be like to be a celebrity.) The group laughed. I was so embarrassed that I offered to retake the shot with all of them in it. Isn't that what you do?

The ubiquity of cameras can lead to great moments - like capturing news when no professional organizations are there. But it also has its downside. We're becoming camerablind. I don't think there's an intentional shift to rudeness here. We're just saturated by cameras. They're on the traffic lights, in the airports, in the stores, in the casinos - you're on camera all day long. What's one more?