picture perfect

Look At Me

Pictures help us remember the good times, the bad times, and things long forgotten with time. Even thousands of years ago (longer even), capturing moments in time has been with us since our Neanderthal eras. Started with cave paintings, and ended up moving digital pictures.

Ennedi cave painting

Young monks in Hsinbyume Pagoda

From giving out warnings, to having a still image of just a daily occurrence, art maintains a form of communication between cultures. History is remembered not only by scripture. 

Pictures

Feelings are a big say so for taking pictures. In one of Dr. Vrooman’s lectures, he was talking about “why do we take pictures?” one of the answers is that pictures are like a diary, we record the days of our lives not just in words, but in images. Could even be argued that pictures represent more than just ourselves, but a responsibility to share with others. There are plenty of reasons really. But honestly? Memories are the most prominent of all. 

Forgetting

Memories are fickle. “Memories may become increasingly difficult to access, due to either the natural aging process or damage to the hippocampus and temporal lobe.” (Lesley University) Depending on our brain is susceptible to many ways of forgetting, remembering things is quite remarkable, and pictures help us. 

How Memories Are Made

Stages of Remembering

Despite these three focuses, memory will always be remembered through many, no matter. How one is preserved is by interactions with others and pictures with them. Honestly, most of my own personal memories are enforced through photos and videos, if we had none of those, my mind would have memory gaps where I wouldn’t even remember things well.

Social Media

In Humphreys "The Qualified self”, she writes that “digital and social media has made the recirculation of old media…  in 2011 timeline was introduced a major technological redesign that enabled people to readily and actively engage with their and others previous posts... [remembrance] is a long-standing practice within media accounting... social media makes it especially easy to tag people as subjects in photos as well as to post it to their timeline” (pg. 86-90). In my own understanding of this, social media has broadened the way we can capture a moment, saving it for not just ourselves but friends and family alike to view at their choosing. Social Media has not only expanded the way we make memories, but also in the way it is viewed by others.