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Ahem, photography ruins the memory ..


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The telltale phrase is 'mindlessly whip out their cameras'.

I flatter myself that I don't do that and actually look at the scene first. I can't remember which great photographer said that he saw the picture first, them raised his lens to the appropriate point to intercept it.

In fact I believe that my photographs help me remember trips and places. I can invariably remember taking a particular picture, even years ago. Digital is even better for this because there are so many more of them.

I recently reviewed some 33-year-old slides for a memorial and I can honestly say I remember taking them, or at least the day.

 

My OH subcontracted remembering holidays to me years ago so it's just as well.

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+1 Mark.

 

I think it's because I'm thinking of how to caption the scene it helps me to remember more.

 

Like you, I can remember the circumstances around photos and slides going back years yet I probably forget some other stuff from the past because I don't have a photo to reference it.

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I rarely take family/ social snapshots - I leave that to the Social Secretary and my children. I do remember most of the half-decent photographs I have taken over 40 years and often when.

 

I remember an article by the editor of a major photo magazine many years ago. He was going on a bird watching holiday to Africa and he was talking about the kit he was taking. Powerful binoculars/ spotting scope but just a a compact camera. As he said the memories would be in his head, photography would get ion the way. I know from my own experience of photographing sport (especially friends and family) how little I actually see. If i get engrossed in the event I stop shooting ...

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Much like the thing where you become the spectator or the person documenting it. I must admit that of the pictures I have taken of any event/party or other, it's probably the only thing I remember. However, yesterday on a walk a huge Buzzard sat in a tree, and I sat and watched for a bit. It flew away by the time I realised it was within reach. I totally zoned out just watching it. I went home had some lunch, some tea and two jaffa cakes and I went back. Managed to get a few shots, but it was the spectator moment that meant more. 

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.. or did I post this before? 

 

bit.ly/1jNHR2d

 

Richard. 

 

What nonsense! Just the other day . . . or maybe last month  . . . no, it was in the summer . . . I was Uptown or in Midtown or maybe in Brooklyn . . . and I was taking pictures of . . . of . . . well, of something . . . and I recall the situation very well.

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What nonsense! Just the other day . . . or maybe last month  . . . no, it was in the summer . . . I was Uptown or in Midtown or maybe in Brooklyn . . . and I was taking pictures of . . . of . . . well, of something . . . and I recall the situation very well.

 

 

Ah yes... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sISWPzEqHLQ

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