Should we photograph life? Or experience it?

The digital age has made everyone a photographer. But sometimes we are so busy taking pictures that we miss what’s really going on.

At a national park in South Africa last month, my son and I witnessed a remarkable scene: two elephants, an adult and a baby, drinking at a water hole. It was the kind of spontaneous encounter that tourists dream about — and it was happening right in front of us.

I pulled out my iPhone and snapped some pictures, pausing several times to see if they were sharp. I saw they were a little grainy because I was so far away and had been using the digital zoom.

And then the scene got better.

We saw another elephant come out of the woods and walk down a small hill to the water hole, trailed by another youngster. Then came more — a mix of adults and their young. Soon there were 21 elephants slurping with their trunks and squirting water into their mouths.

I resumed snapping photos with my phone, stopping several times to see if they were good. I also shot video as the elephants strolled along the water’s edge. I put the phone in panoramic mode and panned across the pond, but when I looked at the picture, all the action was on one side where the elephants were. I changed the setting to HDR to get a better resolution for few photos, but with my sunglasses on, I couldn’t tell if that made a difference.

I looked up and noticed the elephants were leaving. It was like one of them had given the command that the slurping and drinking session was over. They strolled up the hill and walked away.

After they were gone, my son asked, “Did you hear the male elephant make that noise with his trunk? It was kind of like a trumpet.”

I hadn’t noticed. I was too busy taking pictures.

* * *

In the digital age, everybody is a photographer, all the time.

That’s a big change from the film era, when taking pictures was an ordeal. Cameras were unwieldy and you had to make sure you had batteries and the right film. You shot sparingly because developing and making prints was expensive.

Today, we can shoot as many pictures as we want and delete the blurry ones later. Our phones are also video cameras, allowing us to be our own Action News crew.

But with this powerful new tool comes some unintended consequences. We can become so busy snapping pictures that we don’t enjoy what we’re photographing. We get so caught up capturing the moment that we don’t experience the moment.

The entire scene by the water hole in South Africa was probably just four minutes, but I probably spent two minutes of that with my head down — changing settings on my iPhone and squinting to look at the photos.

And even when my head was up, I wasn’t really enjoying the incredible scene. Looking through a camera is not the same as seeing something with your own eyes. I was so preoccupied with taking good photos that I wasn’t appreciating what I was seeing.

Our smartphones have empowered us in many positive ways. They keep us connected to our friends and family and enable us to document things we wouldn’t have recorded before. But they also provide new temptations that pull us away from reality.

To be truthful, my first thought when I saw the elephants wasn’t that I was seeing nature up close. It was: This will look great on my Facebook page!

It’s sometimes hard to know whether we seek pure joy from our experiences, or whether we’re looking for something new to brag about in a status update. In an age when we live our lives online, we seem to think our most authentic moments are the ones with the sharpest photos.

Likewise, I was thinking of my Facebook page last April as I pulled out my phone and started snapping pictures at a Bruce Springsteen concert in Raleigh, N.C. A friend and I had gotten a prime spot on the floor beside the runway that Springsteen uses to get closer to the crowd.

About three songs into the show, he left the stage and bounded along the runway, high-fiving fans and stopping at various spots to sing. As he neared us, I snapped dozens of photos, stopping several times to check my screen to see if they were good. Unfortunately, the guy in front of me blocked my view for a few moments because he was holding up a sign requesting a song. Finally, Springsteen emerged and I could resume taking photos.

Rather than savor the moment as he stopped near us to sing, I pecked furiously at my phone, trying to take as many photos as I could.

He came our way three or four times during the show. Each time, I pulled out my phone and went to work. Many were lousy pictures. Springsteen was out of focus or had his back turned to me in many of them. My view was blocked by signs in others.

But lots were great, particularly the ones I shot during “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.” Or maybe it was “Dancing in the Dark.” I was too busy snapping pictures to notice the song.

I took 361 photos.

There was a common element in many of them: iPhones thrust upward, trying to capture the moment.