Musing: Memory and Imaginary

I had several ideas for the project, all of which I did not know how to accomplish without a tripod or models and sets. Most of these ideas only spanned for one image and did not always have common themes running through each image/idea.

The first was questioning whether it is possible to reproduce mental memory in a photograph. One of my first memories is of losing my childhood teddy bear and later receiving a new one from my mother. The latter is a distorted image, as I do not recall exactly what my old room looked like (it occurred at the age of approx. 4). Most of the room would have to be blurred out, my mother or the representation of my mother would need longer hair than she has now, as well as an old down coat. The circumstances do not really permit me to address this issue.


Another idea I recently came across was how we interpret and remember the supernatural. However, there are so many photographs of supposed real/fake ghosts, spirits, orbs, ectoplasm, and lines of light that I think it would be impossible to garner deep meaning from images. The paradox here is that even if I implied these images could be 'real,' I would need to essentially create the supernatural element in a mundane photo. How could I capture the memory of supernatural in a manipulated photo (likewise for all those claimed 'authentic' photos out there)? It's a good question but I'm not sure of the implications. Furthermore, the entire project would be more effective if it were done in motion media instead of still photography.

The idea I have now questions the reality of our photography, which I came upon by looking through all of the photos stored on my external hard drive. I noticed I had many photos that included clocks but they were not the focus of the image. At the time I was unaware of what the clockfaces actually read, and there is absolutely no way I would remember the 'exact time' (our humanly construction) during the shooting of the photos. With these bits of data/captured light, however, anyone can see when in our timeline it was taken.
Obviously some cameras superimpose the date onto each photo, but that is more of an internal process to the mechanism than a reflection of the outside world.
My understanding of this is that we as humans remember things spatially, physically, or sensationally. Photographing clocks or taking photos that include clocks, on the other hand, places the image temporally, creating a new part of the memory -- enhancing and manipulating the memory of the event in the mind.

Preferably, there would be twelve of these clock images. The problem is I don't have access to many more clocks than Mill's campanile and my own watch or alarm clock. Some of the images really wouldn't fit because all the photos I already have are of analog clockfaces.