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Limitations of photography - What I learnt from my old photographs

It was strange from the beginning, as I never liked being photographed. Of course, I was shy and introverted. And I don't think that is the reason I did not want photographs taken. So, there are very few photos of my childhood, and even as an adult. What about you? How photogenic are you?


Thinking about photography?

Have you ever thought why we ever need photographs, and videos. How did it ever evolve? How did they take a selfie back in the stone age. Cave paintings? There was a selfie taken by "Croods" family in the animation movie which I can remember them taking a selfie. You would agree that we are so advanced from ancient stone age that we can now even take photographs even of black holes, in far corner of the universe. Is it an advancement of our technology, as a human race provided us to capture the moment instantaneously from our smartphones. Not only that, but we can also share it online, Instagram, TikTok Facebook, and many more apps.


photographs
https://unsplash.com/@jontyson

So, again why do we need photography?

Imagine we have a great memory. That we remember everything that we see. Imagine you are at the beach, and you see a beautiful sunset. And you would remember the colors of the sun, casted on the sky and the clouds. And its reflections back on the waves. Old fishermen going to the sea in the afternoon in shadows. And you remember soft waves crashing on the sandy beach. You would remember the salty smell of the sea wind.

Imagine you have this memory, and you have the ability to capture it in your memory every time as many as you want. Then one problem solved. We would not need photography to remember anything from the past.


How often have you looked at your old photos and noticed that you cannot remember that you have been there, done that, not as the photo shows you. Which one is correct about colors, in that instant of time? Is it the photo or your memory or neither? And also, when you look at the photo how many times you have thought "That's not how I remember it" Truely speaking at a single moment a photograph is taken you would only focus on one thing. Maybe it's the color of the sun, maybe it's the sound of the waves or the smell of the wind at the beach. But photos and videos are advanced than our million years old evolved machine that it can capture many more than our memory, at least as close as possible. More in bites than we can put in our memory, and even without prejudiced from our learning. So, for the moment, let's say photos and videos are more correct than what is held in our memory about something.


Old photograph
https://unsplash.com/@sarandywestfall_photo

Photographs are needed as our memory is limited and our attention is narrow.


Limitations of the photography in capturing the moment.

Everyone would appreciate the fact that photographs and videos can capture the moment. However, some would like the real experience of it. Do you know the limitations photography and videos have? in capturing the moment.

For a moment look around the place you are in now. Imagine you have taken a photograph of it. But that doesn't capture everything at that instant right? There is more data in this instance to be captured. And even if you put this data into the all the memory bites humans have ever created, still there would be space, as there is no depth to the actual world. Even if you zoom billion times still there would be space to zoom in. So, truly speaking we can never know exactly what was there in our room. We can just approximate, colors, and objects.

Similarly, videos cannot capture the continuous moment to moment change (Like a mathematical function) that happens around us. It just captures few of the images in between, and we know that even is not close to the reality. So, true reality if it is there, we cannot capture it by any means. And previously we agreed photos are better than our eyes and memory. So, if photos and videos can't do it, definitely we cannot.


A cup of tea
https://unsplash.com/@cjeematic7

Looking back at the original question which I had, why I didn't like being photographed. I have the answer now. I was shy! as an introvert I was shy that was the reason.

And I can add to that saying that I knew photographs will never capture the reality, so why bother trying to do something impossible?


What are your thoughts on this?

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