zyplionok | А теперь не смотри

"Memories by their very nature are historical but the human memory does not work chronologically. It keeps time in a pool of associations, emotions and impressions that can be dipped into anyhow and anywhere. When an object of your affections is summarily removed all that is left is the memory of them and it is truly astonishing what can be remembered. In recalling often long-forgotten details – something they once said, a certain laugh, a feel of their hair in your fingers – it is as if the mind is deliberately reconstructing the lost person, creating a mental replica of them. The wealth of material it has unconsciously recorded about them can be frightening. You reach the stage where it seems they have been virtually living in your head. Which, in a sense, they have. We are all prisoners of our own and others’ perceptions.

But it is not enough. An image, no matter how good, is not the same as the real thing. There has to be some concrete proof that they lived, that they are not just a figment of the imagination after all. Photographs, whether professional portraits or just holiday snaps, immediately become priceless. They are something to hold on to and, by enabling you to relive the pain, perhaps they can eventually relieve it"
Mark Sanderson, Don't Look Now.