photographic memory

I got a roll of film developed recently, which I shot when I was testing out a friend's camera. It turns out that there's something wrong with the camera and the film didn't advance, so all the pictures were exposed on the same frame. The photo store actually developed this one frame and gave it to me, but they didn't charge me. I was kind of disappointed, but...

It's a really nifty picture. Some parts are so overlaid with multiple images that they just become abstractions, but in other areas, only one or two images can be made out, and very clearly at that.

I started thinking about memories. Normal photos are not like memories. They're single, frozen moments, very clear and precise. This multiple-exposure, on the other hand, is exactly like memory. It has a whole bunch of moments, all together, all forming a sort of composite memory. That's how I remember things: many instances, events, images - all at once, all blending together.

What a happy accident this was.