Smelling like old paper, film negatives and musty storage, a cloud of old memories slowly filled the air as I opened the venerable Pullman suitcase. Old family photographs, and other pictures I took, some a half a century ago, waited with negatives stored in protective sleeves. There were people, places and faces, including my own, stuck in time. The difficult part was being there in that moment again, retaking the picture or being in the photograph in that place and that time.
Is it possible to smell the heather and feel the morning breeze gently drifting off the English hills in the Lake District, all those years ago? The actual event can’t be relived, but the mind makes magic sometimes. The photograph acts as a visual reminder, conjuring up bits of experience from the archives in the mind, like an artist creating a painting. Wellington boots seen through a tent flap, “two bob” said the woman wearing the boots and collecting the camping fees. This and other memories stored in the same picture.
A black and white picture, taken on a sunny day, of a friend and I standing next to a sports car I owned. The friend and the car are remembered. The city street we’re standing on looks familiar. What was the name of that street? Why were we there in suits and ties? Does the mind have a librarian checking the stacks for this event? It may take a while, but sometimes, a day or two later, the librarian pops up with the information. Events, places, and people in memory are abstract, subjective thoughts lost in context, perspective and time.
The object and the people in a photograph may bring back memories for some time after the picture was taken. How long the memory replays depends on how significant the event and how much attention it was given. Human imagination only needs a few clues to create what feels like a mountain breeze, the smell of a rose or a loved one’s touch. But everything the mind and body experiences in a lifetime is not remembered. In addition what is remembered is a subjective interpretation of the person or event, and so is the photograph.
No dates and places written on the backs of most photos. Still every picture has an inherent date and place in the past, my past and other people’s pasts even if it can’t be fully visited; reflections of a time and place that only exists there on the paper. The face on the paper is not my face anymore. The beautiful woman in the picture no longer looks or is the same. These things only existed for that photographic moment.
I used to think that “I” was the sum of my experiences and memories. But this cannot be. The past is like those old photographs, moments frozen in time that do not exist beyond the shutter’s opening and closing. Here in the present, there is no past, no current me that remains from those pictures; every second this mind and body are changing. The body and mind in the picture no longer exist. Each memory is only a silent sketch, faded a bit more each day. The mind is like that old Pullman suitcase, stuffed full of folders with pictures, some in better shape than others, but all moments frozen in time. However, the mind, like the case may be opened occasionally for time travel to see the past, to imagine and perhaps explore those fleeting moments.
Written by James R (Jim) Martin, Author, Documentary Filmmaker, Photographer and student of Mindfulness.
Create Documentary Films, Videos and Multimedia: A Comprehensive Guide to Using Documentary Storytelling Techniques for Film, Video, the Internet and Digital Media Projects.