Photography, Memories, and Life

Sunset over Greenland (Cloud Flight, #6). North Atlantic, 2018

Random Thoughts On Photography, Memory, and Life

Photography and our memories…ah, how intimate the relationship, no?

Nostalgia. Auld lang syne.

We use our photographs to help remember those old times–and, of course, we also try to use our hat rack (i.e., brain) to store our personal memories. Unfortunately, both methods lose clarity with time.

Sometimes, it is an old photograph that will spark the recollection of a series of old memories already in existence but merely lying dormant within our neural network.

Sometimes, though, old photographs will actually imprint a completely new memory into our brain of something bygone but never actually remembered. We begin to think we actually remember the event via our own gray matter, but the photographs are simply tricking our neurons.

And how about subconscious motives behind the making of photographs? Hmmm… there’s a good one…

Sometimes I think I make photographs to leave myself a breadcrumb trail of images back into the past… memories I can physically print on paper or recall instantly onto my computer screen. This breadcrumb trail–physical, objective, and ever longer with time–confirms my existence in this material world–a sort of denial of my (and our) impermanence. 

Photography = denial of death??? (See, perhaps, Denial of Death by Ernest Becker.)

Here are some examples, in song and verse, that play with this connection between photographs, memories, life, love, and our ultimate impermanence… 

Simon and Garfunkel’s Bookends Theme (1968)

“Time it was,
And what a time it was
It was . . .
A time of innocence
A time of confidences

Long ago . . . it must be . . .
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
They’re all that’s left you.”

The song:

 

Paul Simon’s Kodachrome (1973) 

OK, maybe this selection isn’t super-philosophical, but it has to be included in any discussion of photography, memories, music, and life in general. Maybe this would be the fun-relevant excerpt:

“Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don’t take my Kodachrome away.”

Here is a video version of Paul and Arty singing this song together at their famous Central Park Concert in 1982:

Jim Croce’s Photographs and Memories (1974)

“Photographs and memories
Christmas cards you sent to me
All that I have are these to remember you
Memories that come at night
Take me to another time
Back to a happier day, when I called you mine

But we sure had a good time
When we started way back when
Morning walks and bedroom talks
Oh, how I loved you then

Summer skies and lullabies
Nights we couldn’t say goodbye
And of all of the things that we knew
Not a dream survived

Photographs and memories
All the love you gave to me
Somehow it just can’t be true
It’s all I’ve left of you

But we sure had a good time
When we started way back when
Morning walks and bedroom talks
Oh, how I loved you then…”

And how it sounds when Jim Croce sings it:

[There are actually quite a number of songs related to photography, but no Wikipedia entry yet. There’s your opportunity!]

Finally, in my own words:

Old Photographs

Last night I had a dream.

I was showing you some

old printed photographs.

“Kodak”, they said on the back.

Ghost-like with time.

Our images were so faded, my friend,

you could barely tell who we were.

And in a few more years,

you won’t.