Recapture

Let me start off by saying that I have a terrible memory particularly of names and people and perhaps this is one of the reasons that I have pursued writing as a means of expression, as a way of recalling and recapturing moments that otherwise would be lost in the incompetent hippocampal memory area of my brain. It's funny though because until recently, I thought that was the only real medium I used in order to do this but I have realised that I also use photography. I tend to work in contrasts, and so does my interest in photography act as a contrast to writing? Or is it perhaps a complement since after all, a picture supposedly tells a thousand words.


I thought it all started last year when I decided finally to purchase a second hand camera off eBay to record memories. This was after my failed attempt to do that 365 days a year challenge where you take a photo every day for a year. Of those 100 or so days that I managed to complete, most of the photos were mundane scenes of my room because I realised that when you're out there having fun, it is so difficult to actually pull out your phone and capture that moment. Thus was my rationale for buying a camera, since its only purpose was to take photos, if you brought it along to an event and didn't take pictures, you would basically be wasting effort hence it forces you to take photos in the moment. Whereas with a phone, since its function extends beyond that, you kind of forget to pull it out for photos. Of course, many people argue the converse is true: why buy a camera when you can just use your phone? Well I simply did not use my phone hence I needed a camera to actually take photos. So the amount of photos and events that were recorded sky rocketed after that camera and of course, what kind of quality can you expect from a $50 something camera from eBay? Especially after being dropped a lot, and its lens probably scratched, and its internal stabiliser broken - the photos were blurry, poorly exposed and just terrible - most were still better than phone camera quality but overall it was bad. And so, this year I finally decided to purchase a decent camera but I didn't feel up to buying a hugely expensive bulky dSLR so opted for once again a cheap entry level mirror less interchangeable lens camera that was a few years old so I could get it secondhand for cheaper on eBay. So far, despite only having it for a few weeks, I cannot believe how I tolerated the terrible compact camera I had used for so long.

So how do I feel about this duality in the way I record memories? I realised that actually for a long time, not just these past 2 years, I have enjoyed photos. Looking back on my photo collection, I realised that when I got my first mobile phone with a camera, I actually took a lot of photos, and that big events were always recorded in my collection - mostly from Facebook downloads of someone else's photos (low resolution as hell). Both writing and photography can capture a scene in different ways. Since photography is almost instantaneous, you can really capture the energy and raw emotion of a moment, in that exact moment. Writing is always done after the fact and more reflective - it can capture the moment in a more interpretive way - thoughts and feelings unbeknownst to the camera sensor. As well, the words may have the exact same reproducibility as the pixels on a digital photo file, but somehow they seem more variable and flexible for manipulation or rather interpretation by the person reading whereas those quantifiable pixels seem more rigid and defined. In this way both act in synchrony to recapture a memory to its fullest reality and as for that old saying, I think its much more relevant to say that a photo and a thousand words together tell a journey.

Learning about exposure settings and depth of field for digital photography so bye.