I have aphantasia. Consequence: I cannot form mental images.
When something passes, it doesn’t stay visually.
It leaves faster than I can return to it. For a long time, I didn’t question that.
By time, photography became a way to hold on to what would otherwise disappear.
Not as memory in the usual sense, but as something external.
A trace I can return to. Something external I can come back to, even if the moment itself is gone.
The images don’t bring anything back.
They don’t restore what was there.
And without them, there would be less to return to.