Comedian George Carlin used to do a bit that went something like this: there’s a moment coming. It’s in the future, but it’s going to get here. Okay, it’s closer now. Getting closer. And ... here! Ah, now it’s gone.”
Greater minds than mine have philosophized to the brink of madness about the nature of memory and impermanence. Buddhist traditions in particular assign considerable importance to living in the present moment rather than dwelling on the past or obsessing about the future.
I love photography because it records moments as they occur. Even a technically poor photo like this old shot of my cat Howie preserves the moment he went after my foot in a way my memory never could. He’s a full-grown cat now. I no longer own those shoes. The steamer trunk at the top of the shot – which we were using as a coffee table at the time – is now gathering dust in the basement.
But when I look at the photo, the memory is back in my mind. And now that you’ve looked at it, the memory is in your mind as well.
To be sure, some photographs don’t take much advantage of this. A studio shot of a bowl of plastic fruit will look the same now and ten minutes from now and ten years from now as long as you don’t change your settings or move the fruit. But far more common – at least in The Photographer’s Sketchbook – are shots that freeze a moment in time, something that never existed exactly that way before and will never exist exactly that way again.
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