Memory works in interesting ways. We store digital pictures to remind us of the past. The better the quality of a picture is, the more space in computer’s memory it will take. The size of a file depends on how many pixels of what was we want to keep. And we can always downsize the picture, if we want to make space for some more. Shrink it to the point when less details are visible, when the sharpness and contrast fades. You still can see what’s there, yet you’ll spend less time staring at the smallest details.
Our memory works the same way, doesn’t it… we store our memories of events of the past in pictures. For some it might be images, for others – sounds, scents, tangible sensations. Matters not. When matters is the size, saturation, the depth of the picture. And the more details we remember, the bigger the size it takes in our memory.
What I wonder now…when we make photographs to capture a moment, we don’t tend to capture bad things, do we? we keep the pictures of the loved ones, of a celebrations, holidays, times when we were generally happy. How many find themselves deleting the photographs on which they “look ugly”…we don’t want to remember the ugly side of us, the bad hair day, the face of sadness or else. And just like with the photographic memories why don’t we do the same with the real life ones. Why not make the pictures of a bad time, of sadness, of despair smaller, why not fade them away and let off the colours from them, making them black and white…we still will remember the time encapsulated in them. We just won’t see it as something bigger then life, bold and “in your face” thing.
The exercises we did on the seminar have been easy for me. They all started with “imagine”, and imagining is what I’m the best at. *smiles&winks*. So when a suggestion was made to imagine, I’ve got "the trick" straight away. They simply talk my language. It was not the question of re-painting the pictures, or burning them out, or stocking away in the darkest corner of the loft. Just making them smaller, flat and less colourful, that’s all. Amazing how such a simple thing changes how you feel about the whole picture.
Actually, to think of it, most of the pictures we store in out memories aren’t real anyway. We can only remember so much. The rest we simply imagine. We do it all the time, every time we look at the picture. If you look at your graduation day photographs, you will think of that day, of what happened, how you felt, what music was playing or how drunk your friends appeared…but you only just looking on a two-dimensional still frame of a splitting moment captured. Memories can be so powerful. Imagine how it would feel to be in total control of them! To be able to choose which pictures to store on the first page in your album and which ones - just in the negatives, black and white reversed colours.
Our memory works the same way, doesn’t it… we store our memories of events of the past in pictures. For some it might be images, for others – sounds, scents, tangible sensations. Matters not. When matters is the size, saturation, the depth of the picture. And the more details we remember, the bigger the size it takes in our memory.
What I wonder now…when we make photographs to capture a moment, we don’t tend to capture bad things, do we? we keep the pictures of the loved ones, of a celebrations, holidays, times when we were generally happy. How many find themselves deleting the photographs on which they “look ugly”…we don’t want to remember the ugly side of us, the bad hair day, the face of sadness or else. And just like with the photographic memories why don’t we do the same with the real life ones. Why not make the pictures of a bad time, of sadness, of despair smaller, why not fade them away and let off the colours from them, making them black and white…we still will remember the time encapsulated in them. We just won’t see it as something bigger then life, bold and “in your face” thing.
The exercises we did on the seminar have been easy for me. They all started with “imagine”, and imagining is what I’m the best at. *smiles&winks*. So when a suggestion was made to imagine, I’ve got "the trick" straight away. They simply talk my language. It was not the question of re-painting the pictures, or burning them out, or stocking away in the darkest corner of the loft. Just making them smaller, flat and less colourful, that’s all. Amazing how such a simple thing changes how you feel about the whole picture.
Actually, to think of it, most of the pictures we store in out memories aren’t real anyway. We can only remember so much. The rest we simply imagine. We do it all the time, every time we look at the picture. If you look at your graduation day photographs, you will think of that day, of what happened, how you felt, what music was playing or how drunk your friends appeared…but you only just looking on a two-dimensional still frame of a splitting moment captured. Memories can be so powerful. Imagine how it would feel to be in total control of them! To be able to choose which pictures to store on the first page in your album and which ones - just in the negatives, black and white reversed colours.