Taking photos for capturing moments — especially using the mobile phone — has become the default behavior for many people. Have you ever been to a live concert? You’d see hundreds of mobile phones sticking into the air for taking videos. Anything out of the ordinary gets captured immediately. Rainbows, a nice sports car parked on the side of the street, a better than the average street musician. It is almost like an addiction.
But can moments really be best captured with a camera?
For me, the best way to truly capture a moment, is to remember it.
Capturing moments through the camera lens
Some years ago, when I became a father, I was very excited. I took hundreds of pictures of my new-born son. My phone was always with me, and I’d capture every moment with it. I took so many pictures that the space on my phone quickly ran out; I uploaded the photos to the cloud and continued shooting.
But not for long.
Soon I realized that capturing moments through the camera lens made me — in a way — miss the real moment. I had be looking at a scene through the screen of my phone, rather than appreciating the moment and creating beautiful memories. I had been so distracted to taking photos that my memory suffered from it.
I also realized that all those pictures were meaningless without the corresponding memory. In ten years, when I will be looking at those pictures again, they will trigger my concealed memory and allow me to relive the past. But if those memories are faint, or even inexistent, the photo would become meaningless. In the end, all those images will just be filling up storage space and get lost among the other thousands of photos I had already taken.
Here’s a recommended writing that goes a little deeper the subject of How Taking Photos Affects Your Memory of the Moment Later On.
Nowadays, I still take pictures with my phone, but it’s different now.
I only allow myself to shoot a photo, if I have fully absorbed the moment and decide that it is worthy of my curated picture collection. Most moments pass quickly, without being captured, but that’s fine, because they live forever in my memory. Because the best way to remember a moment, is to enjoy it.
Taking photos for passion
But don’t get me wrong, I love photography. I like taking pictures with my compact camera. I’ve got two lenses for it; one for telephotography and one for wide-angle shots. Sometimes, I set out with only my camera, to take beautiful pictures of anything that presents itself to me. Landscapes, landmarks, animals, people, clouds. Scenes that I find worthy of a shot. It is a very calming activity that requires me to focus on small objects and details that I would normally miss.
Later, I would browse through the pictures and create a beautiful curated collection, which I’d upload to the cloud. Then, I’d erase all photos on the SD-card to be ready for the next photography expedition, whenever the mood would strike me once again.
I don’t have a particular purpose for these pictures, fore me it’s not about capturing moments, but rather it’s much more about the activity itself. Being outside, observing and appreciating the beauty of everything that surrounds me. Being rewarded with a beautiful album of photos is just a nice remuneration. Because in this case, it is the photo-shooting itself that becomes the memory.
But photography is also a form of art. As we all know a picture says more than a thousand words, but a good photo can tell a whole story, the story of that moment. Captured and forever frozen.
Visual moments and memory moments
It seems as if we can distinguish between two different types of moments.
The first type are those visually stunning, awe-inspiring moments; like a beautiful sunset or a mighty waterfall. I call these visual moments — moments that are best captured with a camera.
The second type are moments that make us happy and make us who we are. Moments that we like to remember, such as a birthday party or a fun day with the kids at the playground. I call them memory moments — moments that are best captured with the memory. In the distant future, a single picture of that day goes a long way, to help us remember and let us relive the past once again.