A Picture a Day keeps the Memory away
If you think back to the last time you took a picture: what was the item or person you photographed and what was the reason? Was it a selfie or maybe a group picture, a landscape photo or perhaps a snapshot of your meal? And furthermore, how many photographs are saved on your smartphone and computer altogether?
I tried to answer these questions for myself and noticed that I have quite a lot of pictures (circa 600; that’s about 1 ½ picture taken per day) stored on my devices. In addition, I thought my last shot was from a wedding party I attended but instead it was a picture of a dog sitting in front of a monument.
So, why is it that we take so many photos and can’t remember them? Aren’t we supposed to help our brains and memories with photography? My impression is that we tend to photograph and save anything (we deem important enough), because we are afraid to forget about it. Yet, this is where we are wrong! While todays memory chips can save large quantities of pictures without any problems, our brains can’t. That is why need to try and take more “mental pictures” of important events instead of digital ones. Digital pictures are designed to be forgotten and (re-)remembered (temporarily), while mental photography is meant to be remembered for a long time. Of course that doesn’t mean we need to stop taking pictures in general; I just wanted to emphasize the importance of enjoying everything with your heart and soul and thereby creating long-lasting (inner) memories. If we can create a good mixture of both kinds of photography, that would be a good thing.
Thank you for taking the time to read this!
