What is Private?: Who is looking and do I care

Two weeks ago, I went to Costa Rica. It was fabulous. I was on vacation, so I ate and drank whatever pleased me to do so. Is that not what vacation is all about? When I came home, I sat down to upload all my wonderful photos onto Flickr and then hesitated.

Do I really want everyone to see all my pictures? ALL of them? What if I look bad? What if I am tired with a pina colada in front of me? Does it matter? Do I care?

People who know me in “real” life know I am open with who I am. What you see is mostly what you get. I am an adult, so I occassionaly drink. I like to take pictures of my drinks for a reason I have not yet determined.

My boss looks at my pictures. People I do not know, have yet to meet, and may one day work for look at my pictures. Will it taint their image of me to see this?

After about 5 minutes of deliberation, I decided I did not care. We are all adults and I post pictures with the full knowledge that someone, somewhere will dissapprove of something I do. There is a line and I do not feel I have crossed it.

This is the first time I have faced this sort of delemma in regards to images. I know I can make some pictures “private” on Flickr, but having private pictures is not the purpose of that account. I decided when I put my name on my blog that if I ever interviewed with an employer who took offense at something I said or put online and, as a result, would not hire me, I did not want to work for them anyway. I think part of this attitude comes from my young age. Maybe I am just pig headed. (Mr. Rochester would go with the latter.)

There should be room in the world for different kinds of people and expression. I would not want to work for someone who willfully misunderstood the way the world works in an Internet age.

In brief: I decided I did not care.

–Jane, most of my favorite pictures are of this anyway