To Improve Memory, Edit Your Photos
When I photograph now, I don’t think much about it. I know it will be automatically saved to the cloud; I know a timestamp will be automatically saved with it. This is not like the old days, when the purpose of photography was to print it and then put the prints in the sleeves of albums.
But it also means it’s easy to forget the photographs you have, and perhaps also the experiences they should have remembered. There are studies showing that when you photograph, you may not remember the subject as well as if you went through the same experience without a camera.
Angela Lashbrook writes in Elemental about some of this research . One study shows that when we take a photo, we think more about how the photo will be perceived (for example, whether people on Instagram will like it) than about what we really want to notice or remember.
I would say that this is not necessarily a bad thing. Any good photographer, when taking a picture, will consider what it can convey to people who see it hanging in a gallery or published on the Internet. In our own lives, it makes sense to think about what is the purpose of photography and what is your purpose in photographing, instead of mindlessly taking pictures.
I love one solution that Linda Henkel, who studies the psychology of photography and photo sharing, told Elemental. “Photos will improve your memory,” Henkel says, “if you put a small number of them on an album.”
You can then browse through the photos whenever you want to remind yourself of a vacation, a baby’s first year, or some other unforgettable experience. You may not be able to flip through the thousands of photos from last year, but you may want to pick the best ones and come back to them from time to time. You can even print a photo book or hang your favorites on the wall. This will give you more opportunity to think about why those moments were special to you.