Unlike most visual media, photography is still used primarily to record memories. Professional photos appearing in newspapers, magazines, or art galleries are wildly outnumbered by personal photos stored away in albums and boxes to document weddings, birthdays, and family vacations. This is sometimes a matter of complaint – that those pesky naïve viewers are so pedestrian as to prefer a photo for its mnemonic value rather than some higher aesthetic. But that’s human nature. Familiarity breeds liking, and it’s only natural that pictures with personal associations will be preferred. Why deny human nature, when it can so readily be exploited (says the psychologist in me)?

But here’s the problem. Photographs are a pretty substandard medium for documenting memories. Everyone who has held a camera knows that feeling of excitement about looking through a roll of newly developed film, and subsequent disappointment when the pictures look absolutely nothing like how you remember the Grand Canyon, or your adorable offspring, or those spectacular roses. It’s not just that we’re all crappy photographers. The problem is that our brains are very different from our cameras.

First, the range of luminosity that can be easily perceived by the human eye is miles beyond what even the best camera can handle. And then, our visual cortex is a master of detecting contrast, edges, and patterns – and conveniently creating some if it can’t find any. Finally, it enhances what we’re paying attention to and filters out any irrelevant details. And before any of this ends up in long-term memory, a great deal of distortion and exaggeration occur. Our perceptual system is active, interpretive, and partisan. The camera records events with a neutrality that a healthy human brain is simply incapable of achieving.

I try to make the neutral images captured by my camera more like my memory. Some are precisely what the camera recorded, while some have been changed dramatically to emulate the effects of time and distance. Appropriately enough, it’s often difficult to tell which are which.

Imperial Sand Dunes, Southern California.

Like Namibia, but hotter.

Lady Fuji

Aizu, Japan

Zen Meditation Caves

Zuiganji