Ian McMillan: Hands up why every picture tells a story

The match has come to a bit of a halt, as a man in shorts sprays

something soothing on the leg of another man in shorts, and so the camera pans around the crowd and, to a man woman and child. They all wave their hands above their heads, some of them gurning and grinning and crossing their eyes and one of them (perhaps he was later rushed to hospital) doing all three.

"Can you see me?" the crowd is seeming to say. "I'm on telly!"

I tut and shake my head at this exhibitionism, but then I recall the infrequent times the TV cameras visit Oakwell, and when a player comes near my area of the stand to take a throw or a free-kick, I find my arms beginning to lift, almost involuntarily, and I have to grip the insides of my pockets to stop myself waving.

I feel daft: I don't want people to see me waving, and yet I almost feel that I have to do it. Look at me! I'm here! I'm waving! Even as I sit on the settee watching the match, I feel my Assam-clutching hand beginning to assume the waving position, and my bum begin to rise from the cushion. I manage to stop myself just before a tea/cushion disaster.

I'm sure this need to be seen hasn't always been as widespread as it is in these High Def, 3-D days.

I look at pictures of old Yorkshire, of people on the streets at the end of the 19th century, and they're just staring at the camera. They just hold our gaze, and they won't let it go. There's no waving, no raised thumb, no two-finger or one-finger salute. It's like looking at a bunch of statues looking back at you.

Even in early moving films, there seems to be a limited understanding of the fact that these pictures will actually be seen by anybody, and that the film is a moving one. People in hats and mufflers stand still, their beards waving in the breeze. A small boy in a cap sidles into the frame and then freezes. Someone walks across the picture, but only because they don't know the camera is looking at them; if they'd have noticed the lens, they'd have stopped, adjusted their hat, and waited.

Somewhere along the historical timeline we've lost this innocence, this shyness, and now we need to raise our hands and wave and

wave.

Years ago, I was in the Mexican city of Oaxaca making a television programme and we were filming in a market; most people ignored us, and it felt like we were just another distraction in a busy day, but some people actively ran away from the camera, one of them dragging a

squealing piglet on a string.

I was shocked: I'd not seen that before. These were people who saw the camera as a dangerous thing, a machine that might somehow take some of your essence and present it in a way that you had no control over. And, of course, they were right.

Then, the other day, I was doing some filming work in Meadowhall, and I stood in the CCTV control room and watched the bank of screens that showed people wandering between shops, strolling with a coffee or standing talking on a mobile phone.

The interesting thing was that these people were modern versions of those old be-mufflered people in the 19th-century photographs. Nobody waved at the camera. Nobody acknowledged its existence. Nobody shuffled sideways to be nearer the middle of the photograph; nobody subtly

turned to present their very best side, their sexiest pout.

Then, when I went into the body of the shopping mall with the camera crew, those same people who had been oblivious, suddenly changed. Some turned away, metaphorically dragging squealing piglets on strings from our line of sight. Some grinned. Some waved. Some shouldered their way to the front and some pushed their way to the back.

Somehow, the presence of the camera had altered how people saw themselves. Somehow, they went from being private people to public beings. They were on show, so they needed to look good, or they needed to look in charge.

I'm not sure what's brought about this cultural shift. You could say it's because we all want to be celebrities, we all want our 15 minutes of fame.

Is it that simple? I'm not sure. I think it's deeper than that; in this speedy and disposable age, we just want somebody to notice us. After

all, isn't that why cave people made their paintings on the wall? And in one of the earliest ones, weren't the cave people waving their arms above their heads?