Meta Memory

[Dawid Loubser]

I wanted to share this spontaneous shot I took at an outdoors rock concert with you...

"Meta Memory"

I don't know if it's too depressing to refer to the lyrics of the song:

Memory
All alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again


But when I saw this old(ish) man at a quite unlikely concert, capturing the memory as best he can with new technology, it struck a chord somewhere, raising all manner of questions again as to why exactly we take photographs. As you can see from the shot on the LCD, the shot will most likely be terrible - a JPEG with completely blown highlights produced by a small CCD - but for the vast majority of people, this is all that they want or need - a reminder.

Do we, as people who put a lot more effort into our shots (even though this one doesn't particularly show it, it was taken at 300mm, ISO3200, 1/20s with manual focus, hand-held in a noisy crowd) also then have the capability to remember "better" when we look at our "better" shots? Or is it that we simply enjoy our craft more?

But what this shot made me feel the most was the following: There is something very intimate and personal in the space between a photographer and his camera. When we use an SLR, this space is ours alone, private, as we are so close to the camera. It's hidden in the eyecup. When I took this shot, I immediately felt that I, for the first time, was exposed to this space - somebody else's space - and that by looking into this space, I could feel a lot of emotion felt by this old man.

 

[Ray West]

Hi Dawid,

Very well said, very well illustrated, hopefully it will stay at the top of this section.

Best wishes,

Ray

 

[Asher Kelman]

Amazing how this forum has taken shape. One man in South Africa raised his DSLR to his eye, focused on a band and then photographed himslef doing that and post here and Ray another man in England decides it is important and uses his authority to promote the post to the top of the line!

So this is a community that works, much as if we were in a living room and Ray bangs on the table and says, "Guys, there's something over here you should look at!"

I do like the story and the feelings.

We need as many ways of remembering things. people deal with the present and reality of current needs and priorites. When we see our personal pictures, we can walk through a private door to all the sights, smells and noises of that mini world.

I sometimes stop and get lost in a picture taken of my children as toddlers and then remember that the guy now is married and has grown. But then I can look again and recognize traits that are still present now.

After the fires in Southern Californai, many people saved their photographs and computer dirves and let the rest burn. Some found it important to take their bibles. That, I think becasue of the custom to write family information in them and thus they get sentimental value.

I expect the next generation will just toss out all these pictures because they have no memories related to most of parents parents or gandparents pictures. So it seems that part of the value of our pcitures are just the reinvoking of precious memories.

The photograph that can transcend this personal value of pictures and makes the picture worth saving, is what we try for.

Asher

 

[Dawid Loubser]

Indeed, Asher, this is a community that works!

 

[Reginald Johnson]

After the fires in Southern Californai, many people saved their photographs and computer dirves and let the rest burn. Some found it important to take their bibles. That, I think becasue of the custom to write family information in them and thus they get sentimental value.

Asher

What a profound fact! Yes, the memory is so important to us. Now we have this brilliant technology to freeze and store a moment in our lives, but unfortunate were those who lived in the ASCII days...

Dawid unearths another important aspect - the private world we see through the viewfinder; how with the same technology we can pry into another's private world!

regi

 

[Rene F Granaada]

What is always the challenge for me whether it is a documentary picture or a completely choreographed scene with a model, how to find and combine style elements that will convey to the viewer the emotions that i felt i wanted to convey when looking at a scene through the view finder.....But hey nothing new here...isn't that what art and creativity has always been about, throughout the ages?

 

[Asher Kelman]

What a profound fact! Yes, the memory is so important to us. Now we have this brilliant technology to freeze and store a moment in our lives, but unfortunate were those who lived in the ASCII days...

Dawid unearths another important aspect - the private world we see through the viewfinder; how with the same technology we can pry into another's private world!

regi

This is a gem of a thread! How do folk react to the idea of meta-memory being the most important force in photography. Here, all the details we fuss about are hardly important. The point of the exercise is to add a direct trigger to that part of our personal lives that gets buried so we can focus on the present and future.

Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

Time for a fresh look with new eyes!