Photography and Senses

Along with having no context about photos, a lot of the time, viewers weren’t actually present at the time of the photo, and as such, photos merely act as a second-hand experience of what occurred. As stated by Jane Lerner (2009), “The sensual disconnect—no taste or aroma comes through the screen—demands that a viewer react viscerally, relying on sight alone to determine worth.” What she is focusing on is the idea of senses, and that photographs don’t depict them at all. One key part of people’s memory is their senses – to fully experience something, all of our senses must be involved. Memories might be triggered by more than just visual senses, and unfortunately, that is all that photograph can currently replicate. As seen in the photo below, we see a seemingly poor area of a town, with older houses and a ruined sidewalk. However, much like the burnt out vehicle, we don’t know anything else about it. Had we been able to smell the area the photo was taken, it could have told us more about it. For example, if it was taken near the ocean (which it actually was; it was taken in Jamaica) we might be able to smell, or even taste, the salt in the air at the place the photo was taken. While there are many other examples of this, it’s obvious that our other senses besides sight are also key in remembering events. Without having experienced it ourselves, it’s impossible to fully prove photos can completely replicate memories.