#photographicmemory is a feature in which someone sends in a photo of theirs and writes about it. It was created because sometimes you can find out more about a person by asking them to describe a photo than by asking them a ton of questions. It was also created because it’s nice to look at pretty photos.
I have a love/hate relationship with my camera. There is a perpetual feeling of missing out on life, letting it all slip away like it never happened, whenever I find myself in a moment worth remembering yet don’t have my camera ready to freeze that one instance in a digital format ready to scrutinise with filters and display on Facebook.
But this picture is slightly different. It was taken with one of those plastic one-way cameras they sell to tourists for nasty prices. I was lucky enough to catch it on a sunny afternoon in London before flying home for a week. I think the photo beautifully captures what I felt while getting lost and found again. The appropriate word might be freedom. I felt free and I was happy. But…I was still haunted by the need to document my life. I could’ve spared myself those 10 pounds and enjoyed exploring London’s streets and parks anyway. And I could very well describe my exact state of mind on that day in a diary. But I wouldn’t be able to share that view I had standing in the middle of a busy road, life buzzing around me, setting my eyes on the horizon’s changing colours. But then, the picture hardly does the job. You can’t hear the buzz, nor can you smell the trees from the park. It’s likely you didn’t have coffee with an old friend half an hour before looking at this photo. It’s likely that even if you would have experienced an exact replica of that day, you wouldn’t think of it as a memorable or especially happy one.
I do obsessively take pictures of everything. I am sometimes more excited about the photos I might make at an event than the event itself. Yup, that is quite sad. However, it’s a way of expressing what is important to me and what I want to remember as part of the life I had. And I’m gonna go wild and guess that that is not a very uncommon trait to have.
Lucija Vihar
Lucija Vihar is a student at Edinburgh University. She studies Psychology. Her favourite part of going to the cinema is watching the trailers and dark chocolate with mint forever secures you a place in her heart. Next year when people talk about what they did last November, she’ll recall how it was the time she was auditioning for Star Wars VII.
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