Photography: an experience between memory and imagination

Abstract

The present article reflects on the relationship between photographs and the triggering of memory and imagination, based on the idea that both in documental photography as well as photojournalism is possible to detect feelings that surpass those established only in realm of the factual and social record. In order to do that, we employ Bergson’s and Halbwachs’ concept of memory and Bachelard’s concept of imagination. Photographs taken by Vishniac and Rothstein are related to photojournalism icons to underline the elements which allow us to determine how the association of memory to the process of the imagination constitutes one of the foundations on which the experience provided by the observation of particular photographic images rests, regardless of the diverse categories in which they are commonly classified.