We hope you’ve been enjoying our Senior Project highlights! Today, we have Josh Hamill to share a little bit about his project…
For my senior project, I took on the topic of photography and memory, ultimately trying to discover which of the two provides more truth in our experiences. I started simple, answering questions such as What is photography? and Why do we take photos? From there, I ventured on a journey through the different personal and scientific aspects of photography and philosophical views on memory with that goal in mind. My project focused on personally experiencing both sides of the story. I went to photograph the Firefalls in Yosemite, but the twist was that I couldn’t look at my photos right away. Over the next couple of days, I journaled about what I remembered. Then, I looked at the photos, waited a few more days, and journaled about what I remembered after seeing the photos. The result was that I now had a side by side comparison of how my memory worked on its own and how it worked with photos. In the end, I drew the conclusion that whether memory or photography is the more truthful preserver of our experience, photographs will always spark memories of times gone by.
