I was roaming around the town in Permet, Albania one hot summer day last year, searching for any camera worthy shots. As I looked around, a particular moment struck me. Layers of squarish-brick buildings stood in front of me as I looked back to catch a sight of the mountain behind. The pine trees around and the layout of these small houses in front of a glorious mountain landscape somehow transported me to a photo I took in New Zealand a few years back. The image was lucid. I was confident the frame in front of me looked exactly the same as the one before.
In the end, it was not quite yet the same. I was disappointed that my memory failed me. Or at least what I had remembered was not as spectacular as what it actually was. The precise and unalluring characteristics of photography that pulls me back to a mediocre setting of an ordinary town. What will you choose to remember when the memory is no longer a reality?
Like an emotion, a moment in time, do we always choose how we want to remember it? The perfect moment that occured not in the moment itself, but manifest from an idea, an imagination, a fantasy. As I indulge in the possibility of what could have been and what should be, the reality of the moment captured, is perhaps far from the story I tell myself.
