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a picture is worth a thousand ethnographies

amber arnold

Memory is the ability to store, retain, and recall information.  We use our memories every day to survive - we remember how to walk, what is safe to eat, and how to communicate with each other.  But more than that, we use our memory to help define ourselves as individuals remembering where we’ve been, what we’ve done, and what place we have in the world.  Memory allows a person to look back on the events of life and memories shape each person in a unique way.  People treasure their memories and share them often with those around them.

But memory is a fleeting ephemeral thing, and as time goes on we often do not remember things as well as we used to and when we die our memories die with us.  Technology has allowed us to extend our memories to the physical world in the form of photographs.  Photographs help us remember past events, allow us to share our experience with other people, and stand as a testament to our memories when we have lost them or when the world has lost us.  Other forms of object memory are subject to filtering out certain facts, but photographs can serve as higher fidelity representation of the world, at least within the frame of the shot.  Many words need to be written to describe an event, but a photograph can provide instant understanding.  Even apparently richer representations such as movies may allow too much sway in providing a perspective through editing and music and other components, but photographs are a single snapshot of the state of the world.

Photographs are often treasured possessions as they represent strong emotional experiences.  People take photographs at important life events, such as a wedding, birth of a baby, purchase of a new home, and celebrations of fun events, such as birthday parties, school plays, camping trips, girl’s night out, etc.  You can walk into almost any home in the United States and find photographs of important events displayed.  The photographs then serve as objects of memory.  They can be used to reminisce about an event, to share that event with those who could not be there, and as a means of leaving some physical trace to pass on to the next generation.

However, not all life events are treated equally.  People prefer to take photographs of events they wish to remember as special memory.  It’s rare for photographs to be taken of funerals, because people prefer to focus on their memories of the life of individual rather than their death.  The primary exception to this trend is photographs of funerals of famous people (e.g. Princess Diana) and war, which we turn to in the next section.  Even in those examples, people prefer photographs that show the emotional moments that make memories.
Photographs are also used as a means of recording the world.  They are a form of physical memory about the world of today so that the world of tomorrow can look at them and have some sense of what today was like.  This is easily illustrated by looking at history books.  I was not alive in 1929 when the stock market crashed and started the Great Depression, but I can feel the impact it had on people by looking at pictures of the panic of the day of the crash in a history book.  The early 1920’s were also a time of gaiety and parties, traditionally shown as the pictures of flappers.  Few people of younger generations were alive at the time of Kennedy assassination, but many people have seen the photos of him riding in the car.  Photographs of this type not only allow us glimpses into the past, but for those who did not experience the event, they define their memories of the event.  We can see events, understand what was happening, and feel the impact of the events by examining the people in the photographs.
Personal photographs are typically taken as true representations of the world, and the assumption is that pictures do not lie.  For events where photographs lead to controversy, the differences in opinion come from clashes in the interpretation of what is being depicted in the photographs.  A prime example of this is the Abu Ghraib Prison abuse scandal.  Photographs taken by the guards have been seen all over the media, and the photos were used as court evidence in the trial of the guards.  One of the better known images was of Private Lynndie England holding a prisoner on a leash. Nobody denies that this occurred, and the photograph accurately represents reality. 
The common interpretation of the photograph was that she was intricately involved with the torture and abuse.  However, she testified that her participation was minimal and her role was mostly just in the pictures pointing, laughing, and holding the leash.  Here people’s memories of the event and the depiction in the photograph differ.  Why do they differ?  Not because the photograph wasn’t accurate, but because that was the photograph shown all over media.  It wasn’t like the photographer desired to obtain even coverage of the entire torture event.

While photographs are powerful representations of personal memories, their role in society is even more powerful, as they serve as the only information people may receive about an event.  Photographs have become the real world representation of our nonphysical memories – one of the essential ingredients to life and being human.  Photographs allow us to preserve our memories so that we can reminisce later in life, share our special events, and pass on something of what we are today to the next generation.  Photographs have become the physical form of our memories, and their importance demands their inclusion in any study of human behavior.
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