A photobook by Paula Corchado, Samuel Correas, Rafael Fernández, Lucía Hita and Paula Maestre. Link to the work.
The name of our photobook is “The shape of memories”. We chose this name together as a group following the theme that we wanted to express in this photobook: the memories and how we cannot go back to them. The general topic on which all the work groups had to base their individual projects was presented in the classroom as “being locked in pictures”. From here, each group could focus on the subject according to their own vision. The first thing that came to our minds were the memories and how we keep all of them in photographs. From this thought a metaphor can arise of how a photograph of a moment that has already happened is locked in it, not being able to happen again more than once in the same way.
We have interpreted “being locked in pictures” as those moments that were trapped in photographs and that we can always preserve even if they cannot be lived again. We decided to focus on this interpretation and from here we started a small internal debate in the group about how it would be the best way to express it. Our main concept is nostalgia and we thought about how to represent it in different ways and approaches. From here another idea arose: dividing our photobook in chapters, each one focusing on a different type of nostalgia with a different approach but following the same main concept.
At first, we thought of creating 5 chapters, each one focusing on every member of the group and her/his own story and memories. That way each one would oversee representing their memories however they preferred to. However, after serious reconsideration and considering all the advice given in our introduction presentation, we decided to make it just in three chapters where we would show three different approaches to memories and the change of time. These three chapters focus on: places, persons, and objects.
In the first chapter, which makes a relationship between memories and places, we wanted to show how certain landscapes and hideouts are trapped in our minds forever, even though over time they may not remain identical to a specific moment in the past. Although a location remains intact as can be seen in a photograph, it will still not be the same experience that we remember and keep photographed since the same conditions of the past can never be repeated. Therefore, we wanted to show this contrast between the past and the present in these locations where we continue to keep good memories. We decided to name it “A place to stay” to express all these feelings.
In the second chapter, which focuses on the people and the process of growing old, we talk about how the passage of time affects us as humans. In this section, we wanted to represent how people do not remain the same throughout their lives and how in these memories that we keep we were another person than the present one. As in the previous chapter, we also used this contrast between past and present, here emphasizing the gap between youth and old age: the passing of the years in people and how we remember our own moments of youth locked in photographs once in the last part of our lives. We decided to name it “The person we were” to express all of these feelings.
To finish with the last chapter, we wanted to show something more tangible by referring to the very objects of the past that we keep and the photographs where all our more material memories are trapped. “The objects we kept ” refers to all the materials that have had an important meaning and, therefore, we keep from our past since it contains a great sentimental value, still linking us to our most beloved memories.
Image Theory 