[saurik]

I am shocked by this as I find myself mostly able to remember the moments when I took a photo... like, I went to a wedding last week, and I have a really strong memory of most of the photos I took even though I have not yet looked at any of them. I would have assumed the process of paying careful attention to a scene with the goal of capturing "the perfect moment" makes that moment itself special and unique, not just from your analysis and critique but also simply from how it forces that moment to be separate from the continuous stream of time over which your interest would previously had have to have been spread.

[chris_st]

> the process of paying careful attention to a scene

I think you've hit on the main thing here that (in a sense) differentiates you from the "normal photographer". Honestly, a lot of people just "point and shoot", in the article's "save an ephemeral memory" sense. You're taking the time to make a careful composition (and artistic composition is not something most people study). Your "capturing 'the perfect moment'" and "analysis and critique" are just not something a lot of friends and family do on vacations.

Not that there's anything wrong with any of that! But I think that's probably the difference here.

[pretentiousPear]

Agreed. Personally, I take photos daily - but a big portion of them is to capture something I don't have time to write down or a capacity to remember. Those could be adds in newspapers, clothing in some store etc.

[colanderman]

When I first read about this effect years ago, it was accompanied with the advice that careful study of the scene which you are photographing is enough to offset the effect (and perhaps even amplify memories).

I suspect that in "casual" photography, the photographer is simply focused on getting the camera turned on, pointing it in the right direction, and remembering to press the shutter, rather than the scene itself, and hence form no memories of the scene.

[nerdponx]

Another anecdote in favor of this idea: most of my "visual" memories from my last 2 vacations were scenes and moments that I either photographed, or wanted to photograph but didn't for some reason or other.

[npunt]

I have a somewhat similar experience, except that I’ve concluded that it’s far easier for me to remember a 2d image than physical 3d representation. My hypothesis is that a flat 2d image is just far less information, and doesn’t vary based on the angle I look at it, so it focuses attention. It’s also something I can reinforce by looking at again, even in thumbnail form. I’m not great at remembering faces, but remembering pictures of faces is super easy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’ve concluded it’s not (very) related to the extra attention required when taking a photo is that I can often remember photos of people that I didn’t take - e.g. their facebook profile photos.

[cup-of-tea]

Were these posed photographs? I find this effect happens on candid photographs or action shots, both of which I consider much more valuable than posed photographs.

[saurik]

No: I don't really enjoy posed photographs and don't bother taking them.

[seba_dos1]

I bet that it would change if you actually looked at each of them right after taking.