The Little Things: 1
This post has been triggered by seeing some of my friend’s photos.
This isn’t really my point though, just a thought. I’ve called this series The Little Things because I want to highlight the magic that occurs everyday that we don’t think about. Today: Cameras and Photos and Memory.
Most people have one, and if they don’t have a dedicated one, they have one on their phone or something. We take millions of pictures each day, and these show our daily changes in life. And our brains constantly store information about our lives in real-time. But how many human minds went into the production of cameras? and how many people actually understand how mere chemicals and electrical signals can capture memories? For that is what photos are. Physical Memories. And this is what memories are. Mental Photos.
For example, take two people, completely identical, in completely identical universes. Now, one takes his camera to a day out, the other forgets it. The one with the camera takes photos the entire day, the other cannot.
Years later, they both remember this day. One has the photos, and can see what he saw on that day, and remember that way, reliving the day snapshot by snapshot, like walking through an art gallery. His memory might be more detailed, but is still frozen, like those photos.
The other has only his thoughts. He might not have a visual cue to relive the day, but due to his lack of distraction and pre-occupation with taking the photos, he might have a more vibrant memory of the day, and remember the events and happenings in that day. His memory might be like an old film, a little worn, a little faded, but something moving and alive.
There are good and bad points to be said for both types of memory. Photos can be shared easily, thoughts cannot. Photos do not convey feelings, but thoughts, through the medium of speech, can.
Magic occurs either way. Your brain converts sight and feeling into electrical signals, and you can relive those sights and feelings again, while photos and videos do roughly the same. We take memory and photos for granted. We see them as ordinary. But they are a kind of modern-day magic.
I once went to see my favourite band, Rush, at the O2 arena in London. I took my new camera, and snapped happily away for most of the concert. Afterwards, I realised I’d been so busy taking photos, I hadn’t paid as much attention to the music as I’d hoped too.
And there have been many times, on nights out, I’ve forgotten my camera, and so have no physical memory of the events happening. This has been mourned by myself and friends, as our memories of the night could have been refreshed by the physical evidence of the evening.
Don’t make my mistakes. Use both kinds of memory. Work a little magic.
