In Regards to Memory

Earlier this week I was looking through my numerous photo albums in search of as many photos as possible that featured the several horses my family has owned in the past.  My oldest sister is putting together an album that documents my family’s horse centered past, and my mother is helping. All of this is for a Mother’s Day gift. Shuffling through photos of when I was very young, it got me thinking about the value of photos and what it means to hold memories dear.

For me, especially now as a young adult, I’ve come to accept just how fleeting any moment can be. Photos, I find, help save these too soon forgotten times. By quickly snapping a shot, these little memories in life are saved for now— maybe even forever. Photos create for us, small time capsules that keep anything, from our first birthdays, to silly faces, locked away as physical evidence. Photos tell stories memories forget. Photos keep us immortal, they are a testament to the fact that at one point this moment existed, even for a split second.

As  Karl Lagerfeld said, “What I like about photographs is that they capture a moment that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce.” Nothing more could be so true.

These little pieces of our past mark us as being apart of a greater history. Perhaps, that history is the fact that when we were younger we played baseball, hockey, or other little league sports. Or perhaps the story of how you got that scar on your knee is locked away in that photo of you riding your bike for the first time. Photographs hold our most precious and most mundane moments in a frozen state. They maintain the memories we forget.

This is why I think photos are so important, especially now in a day and age where every individual is carrying around a camera phone in their pocket. Right now we live in the most documented period in time. Everyone including their moms, grandpa, and boss take photos of themselves, the sunset, the meal they ate. Living in the moment is just as important as documenting the fact that the moment even existed.

What is your favourite memory? Do you have a photograph that you hold dear? Think to yourself why are these so important to you. Perhaps its the people who are in these precious moments, or maybe its just the fact that you were there to witness a particular event. Let me know!