FUTURE HUMAN
Modern Photography Is Changing How We Remember Our Lives
Our shared photographs now create nostalgia in real time
I remember, as a child, pulling my grandmother’s yellowed Polaroids from the dusty shoebox I’d found high up in her closet. That afternoon, we sat next to each other on the couch, pulling old photos from the box one by one.
Although she couldn’t recall exactly where and when each one was taken, every photo triggered a story. My grandmother brought the images to life. We laughed and we cried as she relived every picture, and I learned more about her than I’d ever known before. In the late-evening glow, I watched my grandmother’s hands shake as she reluctantly set each print back into the shoebox.
Photography has drastically changed since then. Today, the moment has hardly passed before it is seen by someone many miles away, someone we might not even know. Our photos can speak instantly to the world, and our reminiscence happens in real time.
The story of the modern camera is interwoven with our need to create, record, and remember. The camera began redefining nostalgia in 1888, when Kodak released a small and simple personal camera for amateurs: “You press the button, we do the rest.” The camera quickly became indispensable for…
