Tonight I participated (albeit briefly) in a conversation about the purpose of photography. In a world where there are so many millions, or billions of photographs, the original comment was that they do get a bit ‘samey’ after a while.

There was a professional photographer at our table, and she said that for her a camera disconnects her from her ‘experience’ of the world. It stops her from perceiving each moment as fully, as when she is ‘connected’ by just looking through her eyes.

I thought that was a really interesting point and want to explore the idea for myself. Maybe Instagram photography is a means to try and impress for some people perhaps, but tonight I look over my nutritional science Instagram profile and I see nothing particularly special or engaging about it, even though I loved taking those photos, and I did love the experiences that I documented by photographing. Do I really remember those experiences though?

External storage of an internal experience

Also, at the table was a psychologist, who suggested that perhaps photos serve to steal our memories. Because we record so much of what makes an impression on us into our phones, we are given the opportunity to then go ahead and forget the experience, because our brain knows that it has been recorded.

It is as though, our memories are becoming externalised, but given the very true Bliss and Eso song – Moments (featuring Gavin James), ‘all we really have left is our memories’. And in terms of the kinds of mentally degenerative diseases that can ensue for many if our hearts hold up into old age, memories are some of the most important factors in keeping our brains healthy.

Maybe I should try to live without taking photographs for a while. It seems near impossible in an Instagrammed world. Or maybe I can block out certain adventures in the world where I do not take a single photo, but really observe all the detail of something that excites me visually, to see if that memory is better preserved.

It would be a good reason to get off Instagram (which I would probably never do, for social reasons)!