Photo Impairment Effect // (#003)

Photography and neuroscience. To quote the Sound of Music: “These are a few of my favorite things” It seems pretty crazy, but the science is out there: Your phone is ruining your memory… but don’t worry, thinking like a photojournalist when you take pictures can change all that.

Do this for me: Close your eyes and think back to the last big family event, birthday, party, going out with friends, you pick — Just as long as you pulled out your phone and took pictures. How much do you remember about it? — The people you were there with, how much time you spent where, what you ate or drank while you were there, or even, what was your favorite part of it?

Alright, now open your eyes.

Did it feel like things just weren’t as clear, like you just couldn’t quite remember all of those details? Well, it’s not just you. Thanks to some really novel neuroscience research, we now know why that is. It’s been dubbed the “photo impairment effect” and chances are, if you’re one of the billions of people around the world constantly documenting your life on your smartphone, you’ve probably experienced it.

Let’s look at the science behind what’s going on:

So, you might think that taking photos would positively affect your memory because it focuses your attention… hence increasing how memorable the event was for you. But counterintuitively, you’ll often pay less attention when you take photos, depending on the external device of the camera to “remember” for you. Essentially the research out there suggests that people are much less likely to remember information if they expect to have future access to it — like on their camera, computer, or the 400 pound gorilla that is social media.

One of these great little pieces of research is one from 2014 by psychologist Linda Henkel that dives right into this issue and presents some results that, as a photojournalist, we’ve known for years as a way to mediate this photo impairment effect. In the study, participants were asked to walk through an art museum exhibit and were instructed to either A) Just walk through and observe the artwork, B) Take mostly general photos of the artwork and the space or C) Take photos of specific parts of the artwork (like faces, swords/helmets, etc.) in the exhibit.

Take for example, the stunning piece of art that is “The Night Watch” by Rembrandt — one of the true masters of light, shadow, and immense levels of detail.

The piece is a sight to behold — standing nearly 12 feet tall by 15 feet wide and housed at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. But back to the study… For example, participants in Group A would simply take in the piece in its entirety, and Group B would take photos without any real objective. Where this gets interesting is for Group C who were tasked with focusing on details of their pieces of art (and works like the Rembrandt feature an astounding level of life-like details to focus on).

So, when those three groups were tested afterwards, which one do you think recalled the artwork the best? Well you might be surprised to find out, but Group A that simply just walked through and observed the artwork was able to recall details of the museum exhibit the best!

Although photographing the artwork as a whole, without an objective, hurt participants’ memory for visual details about the objects (Group B), being tasked with honing in on one aspect of an object (Group C) mitigated the lost memory not only for the part they zoomed in on but also for parts that weren’t focused on.

Even though they took extra time and attention angling the camera and adjusting the lens so as to capture the best photo they could, regardless, the act of photographing the art did still have the consequence of participants dismissing the object from memory.

And, chances are, you’ve probably felt this very same thing. And when you think about it, it kind of sucks. So let’s fix that.

When I’m out on assignment, whether it’s a crowded public event or an ongoing feature project, as a photojournalist, I’m always looking for details in the environment, fleeting moments in people’s faces, and dramatic lighting that elegantly captures the scene. Basically, as photojournalists, we constantly live in that third research group that’s tasked to focus on photographing details of the scene. And as a result, we’re able to remember a great more about those assignments/events/projects/etc. when keeping those goals and objectives in mind.

Here’s a great example of that from last year photographing the UW Diversity and Inclusion Graduation Recognition ceremony. With such an open-ended assignment as “event coverage,” it could have been easy to get a bunch of general-purpose shots that tried to document the event. But what separates “coverage” from “visual storytelling” is focus on those details, moments, and expressions that make the audience of your photography feel something.

So, when you’re out photographing your next birthday party, halloween costume or family get-together: think like a photojournalist, focus on the details, focus on the moments, focus on the light. Your future-self thinking back on those fond memories will thank you.

What do you all think about the Photo Impairment Effect — Have you felt that same lack of memory, even after taking a ton of pictures? Let me know in the comments! If you all liked this or want to read more articles like this, let me know!

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PHOTOS FROM THE EPISODE //

QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY // What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments!

SHOW NOTES //

5 Lessons Learned from Podcasting in 2019

Picture this: It’s late 2018. Feels like a lifetime ago, right? Like the whole damn world’s changed since then. Enter me: Freelancing pretty regularly, working at a past desk job and feeling creatively TOAST — I wasn’t happy with the quality of the work I was producing, but without any buffer time in my life to practice my craft and grow as a photographer. What would you do? Well, if you’re crazy like me, you’d respond emphatically with… start a podcast? Yep. That’s right.

It’s become pretty trite to even say anymore but, back in 2018, the social media and digital world was changing in a big way. (Remember again that January 2018 marked the beginning of Facebook openly and frankly saying that they were going to radically de-emphasize commercial content in the news feed and favor “friends and family” content over “brands and pages”) And in that creative TOAST that I described earlier, I was feeling more and more disconnected from my visual creator brothers and sisters even though we were all connected and sharing on Facebook, Instagram and the like. So it hit me — as a freelancer, the way to actually feel connected to a community of photographers, cinematographers and more wasn’t to drop my work off the cliff into the news feed. What I needed to do was start to create a community myself through teaching and learning from some of the most knowledgeable, talented, and creative visual storytellers out there – the kind of creators that you’ve seen their byline and their work, but you don’t yet know their story.

It’s now been a full year of creating content for the Photo Forward Podcast and, whew, I finally feeling like I can call myself an honest to goodness podcaster. And yes, that does sound as weird to me saying it as it probably does hearing it if you’ve discovered this podcast from my photo and video work. So with that, I wanted to share a little bit of Insight And some lessons learned From my first year creating this very photo forward podcast for you guys who may be considering doing the same (which I would highly recommend anyone start a podcast if you have a pulse and think you have a message to share with the world) So without any further ado, let's get into my biggest lessons learned starting the photo forward podcasts in 2019. 

#1 – Podcasting forced me to expand outside of my normal skillset as a photojournalist.

Immediately, upon telling people that I was going to start a podcast, I had to field questions like – “What do you think you’ll talk about? Do you think that photographers really want to sit down for an hour-long interview? Have you done this kind of thing before?” These threw me into a fair share of tailspins as I started to do the legwork to get the podcast off the ground and interviewing the first few guests in person and over Skype. Sure, I'd recorded audio on set and interviewed people for documentaries or content marketing pieces, but nothing quite like that ultra-real, authentic face-to-face (or Skype) podcast interview connection with no cameras, no lights, and no crew in sight.

There's something to finding that extra level of vulnerability and deeply connecting with your guests face to face, eye to eye in person. Us visual creators often use our cameras as a shields of sorts. Sure we can capture beautiful, moving cinematic images, but we often do so at the detriment of actually experiencing those moments firsthand. Or maybe if we're experiencing them, we're not truly feeling them. So that's one of the things that really drew me to the format of the long-form interview podcast.

#2 – Podcasting WILL, I repeat WILL, enable you to communicate more clearly in everyday life. 

It might sound like apples and oranges, but being a better private speaker makes you a better public speaker. You might be crammed into your jankily soundproofed bedroom closet makeshift studio on microphone recording your interview introductions, but it FOR SURE translates into being a more deliberate and confident public speaker. Because you’re able to get immediate feedback on your speech (Did I stutter through the delivery of that sentence? Why do I sound so sad or angry when I’m trying to make my voice sound happy?) you can directly correct those accidental mannerisims that we mindlessly move past in everyday speech with colleagues, friends and loved ones. Hearing and truly LISTENING closely to your voice is an incredible way to make sure you’re sharing the best version of yourself to the world.

#3, Closely related to #2, but unique to creating a podcast in the space that you work in – Podcasting coaches you into being able to talk about your work in a deliberate, cohesive way.

Again, like I mentioned earlier in the episode, us visual creators often don’t have to practice justifying our work or explaining why we did what we did. We sort of chalk up certain creative decisions to “going with our gut” or “thinking rationally” on visual projects. The act of asking another visual creator about the technical style of their work or even talking through their career trajectory forces you as an interviewer to be precise in your creative language to get beneath the surface level (where did you go and which gear did you use).

#4 Creating the Photo Forward Podcast allowed (and required) me to dive back into the memory box of history and put myself in the place of a new, emerging visual storyteller.

As I’ve talked about on the show before, when setting out to create the Photo Forward podcast, I had a few major goals for new listeners and creators in mind — Share the stories behind visual storytellers the world over, give new photographers a repository of lessons learned and pitfalls to avoid, and provide critique coaching and mentorship as we grow the audience and following. (We’re still working on that last one, but this year, that’s going to be a big focus going forward). So in order to make sure that the interviews resonate with both emerging and established visual creators, I had to hop in my photographer time machine and really think back to those, if I’m being honest, dark days of my early career wondering if this photography thing could ever actually allow me to provide for myself and maybe one day a family. The questions and doubts do change, but they never truly go away so putting myself back into the shoes of a new creator ensure we can create the best quality content.

#5 Podcasting WILL grow your network outside of the folks you’d normally interact with. 

Sure, as I was pulling together an initial list of guests to have on the podcast, I leaned more heavily on both people that I knew personally as well as folks with some industry recognition. But as I kept completing interviews, more and more, I would chat with guests after we’d finished and see who they think would make a good guest for the show and who would have some wisdom to share. This is another beautiful thing about podcasting, the more episodes we create, the wider array of guests we have on, the more the network effect of 2nd and 3rd degree connections grows — essentially my theory at the beginning of the podcast that, the way to actually feel connected to a community of photographers, cinematographers and more was to intentionally create a community myself through the show. We’re just getting started, but I’m already reaching out to creators I never even knew about before getting started that I guarantee will bring you all an immense amount of knowledge and value in the months and years to come. 

So, there we have it, the top five Lessons learned from my first year as a podcaster creating the Photo Forward Podcast. I didn’t really dive into the technical side of producing the podcast and lessons learned. And that’s on purpose. Because honestly, I think the gear, gadgets, and programs that go into producing the show are so secondary to the personal and professional work necessary to create this show each week. But that being said, if any of you are interested in hearing more about the technical hurdles and lessons learned from the technical and production side of the podcast, shoot me a DM on Instagram @BBrewerphoto and if there’s enough interest I’ll put together a quick primer.

As much fun as creating this series in a vacuum and pushing content out into the void is… I want to hear from you guys! Are there topics or guests that you’d LOVE to get on the podcast here in 2020? Or are there some BIG NAGGING QUESTIONS you’ve got on photography or video production that you want me to cover on one of these solo episodes? Hit me up @BBrewerphoto or drop an email to podcast@photoforward.media . I want to make 2020 a much more collaborative, community-focused season of the Photo Forward Podcast and can’t wait to keep creating with you all throughout the year. So, as always — Keep seeing, keep shooting, and keep putting your best Photo Forward. LATER!

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PHOTOS FROM THE EPISODE //

QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY // What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments!