I’M AN OLD GUY, WELL INTO MY 7TH DECADE approaching my 8th. So, I have a lifetime of memories and fortunately my memory is very sound. That written, I have been thinking about memory + photography cuz…
… it has been postulated by serious thinkers-in academia-on the subject that, with the incredible magnitude of photographs being made, photographs are somehow replacing human memory and becoming the memory. Consider this from an essay in the book, A MATTER OF MEMORY ~ Photography As A Object in the Digital Age:
“…photography and memory have been intertwined for so long that their inextricable linkage has become a platitude. Most of us recognize that many of our childhood memories are more likely the result of seeing photographs of ourselves as children than they are actual recollections recovered from the memory centers in our brains….in recent years there has been a surge of interest in the omnipresence of photography and its effect on memory.”
iMo, this concept, re: photography effecting memory, is a bit of an academic dalliance; they gotta have something to do. But, be that as it may, that concept is not much on my mind. What is on my mind is popular idea that photographs preserve memories…
… right from the get-go, let me state for the record that I lean toward the idea that photographs are a fine visual reminder of a moment in the past but, despite their ability to present a picture of that moment complete with a lot of visual detail, they are, at best, an inciter of memories stored in the human brain. However, to be precise, only in the human brain of a viewer who was a participant in that moment. And, the memories that may rise to the fore upon viewing a photograph are, due to the nature of human memory, rather generalized, i.e, vague / “foggy” / imprecise, at best.
On the other hand, consider the photo of me in my pajamas… I know it’s a photo of me cuz the depicted face in the photo looks like the face I have seen in other photos from that time that I know to be photos of me. I can assuredly deduce that the picture was made in the attic-which my father renovated-bedroom cuz of the sloping ceiling line behind me. But, I have no idea who made the photo-probably my father but it could have been taken by my mother or my grandfather (he was an avid amateur photographer)-nor do I have even the vaguest idea the why photo was made. I do know that photo was not made in March 1960-as printed on the border-cuz we were not living in that house in 1960. March’60 was the date the photo was printed and considering the fact that my dad was frugal in his picture making-a roll of film could be in the camera for year or 2-the photo could have been made more than a year or more before that March ‘60 date.
All of written, here’s the thing about that photo…I have absolutely no memory associated with that moment in time. None. Nada. Zip. The image, and in this example also the actual print, is little more than a visual artifact about a past moment in time. It does not cause me to manufacture a memory. It is, primarily, just a picture.
That written, the photograph does, in fact, stir up a memory. Not of the moment but rather of someone not depicted - my father. The instigator of that memory-a memory that is very broad and generalized-is a detail in the photo that only I might notice, the aforementioned slanting ceiling line that testifies to the fact that the photo was make in the bedroom that my father made in our attic that he renovated. However, strangely enough, I have no memory of him renovating the attic.
In any event, all of the above written, I do have many photographs of a past moments in time that incite memories associated with that moment in time. And, to be honest, I have quite a number of photographs of past moments in time that remind me of moments that I might never have thought of if not for the photographic evidence. On the other hand I have far more memories for which there is no photographic evidence other than the pictures in my head: I am primarily a visual thinker after all.
In either case, and in my experience (your experience might vary), memory and the memories associated with them are rather enigmatic / ambiguous / insubstantial. And, iMo / experience, having a highly detailed photograph of a past moment in time does not make a memory any more detailed, memory wise. That is, beyond the detail of the literally depicted visual content. However, that written, what might appear to be an insignificant detail in a photography-think about the ceiling line in the above photo-could, in deed, incite a memory about something / someone / someplace that is not part of that moment.
Ok. I’m starting to ramble on. That’s in part, cuz I am still trying to sort a lot of this stuff out. But part of that sorting out is the 4 “ghosted” photos in this entry. I intend to make a photo book about photography + memory in which all of the photos will be ghosted in order to support my idea that memories-even those incited by highly detailed photos-are rather “foggy”.
