Eyes on the Google Glasses

Seeing the Sergey Brin shot from the web glasses unveiling today reminded me of a conversation I had at Photoville with an esteemed member of the photojournalism world. This person was lamenting how the mobile phone, with everyone noodling their devices, has basically killed street photography.

Of course, today we hardly notice, but in the early days, people on the street plugged in to their phones looked a lot like they were psychotic, like they were simply talking to themselves or experiencing auditory hallucinations. I’m now fully ready to gawk at bespectacled folks with twisty necks appearing to be having visual hallucinations — until I get used to and stop noticing that, too.

Notice, also, how the photo is all about fashion, when the revolution is so in the function. I doubt Jobs would have posed this way (it’s too “diva”), but the shot is so Steve-inspired — selling cool, selling lifestyle.

(photo: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg. caption: Google co-founder Sergey Brin wears Project Glass Web-connected glasses at Google’s annual developers conference in San Francisco.)