Memory photos

You’ve got a favorite trail, don’t you?

The one you hike in every season. After work. On Saturdays. Even your mom hiked it that one time.

Mine’s about an hour from Boulder—a quiet gulch trail that keeps pulling me back in.

This time I brought the dog. Sunny October afternoon. Aspens lit up at the trailhead. We're short on daylight, especially after a quick detour to drop a hitchhiker in Rollinsville. You know, mountain town stuff.

After the approach, we switchback up near treeline. A few steeper sections, I catch my breath, look up, and there it is.

An unpretentious alpine lake. Views are lovely, not grand—just enough water and privacy for a good ol' skinny. I pause just long enough to feel two things, one right after the other.

First: this is what we do this for. Not for a peak, but for this exact moment. The smell of sweet pine and the wind blowing over the ridge. My brain finally hushes and I feel human again.

Then, almost immediately, something else creeps in.

An urge.

I don't like it, but it's there. Subtle at first. Unconscious. Like the sun slipping below the horizon without me noticing—until it's gone.

It hits.

The urge to pull out my phone.

To take a picture. To document this moment. A photo for—gasp—Strava.

You know that little panic? Like if you don’t capture it, it don’t count?

And I know the second I pull it out—even on Do Not Disturb or without signal—I’ll feel its weight. The pressure to frame it. To capture it. To prove I was here.

The moment won’t just pause.

It’ll melt away, just like alpine snow in June.

***

That feeling didn’t surprise me as much as I wish it had.

I’d felt it before—on summits, at sunsets, mid-bike ride. That shift where a moment that was whole suddenly starts begging for proof.

I like photos. I take too many. But somewhere along the way, I started feeling like I was stealing from myself—my attention drifting from what’s in front of me as my hand moves toward the phone in my pocket.

That didn’t sit right.

So I started experimenting on my adventures—playing with the line between capturing moments and actually being in them. Some days I’d leave my phone in my bag. Other times I’d turn it off or leave it in the car. Occasionally, I’d bring only a separate camera, no phone. And I paid attention to how it felt and whether I stayed in the moment or got pulled out of it. 

But I can only overthink things on my own for so long. Some problems are better solved around a campfire with friends. And after a little talking over each other, we landed on something that stuck.

Memory photos.

A memory photo isn’t taken during the peak moment of an adventure. It comes after. It’s a photo that doesn’t try to capture the moment itself, but instead points back to it. Something basic, indirect, almost boring on its own, but electric if you were there.

Here’s the only rule we could agree on: when you feel that familiar itch to take a photo—don’t. Notice it. Enjoy the moment. Then, later, take a picture of something else and let your memory do the rest.

Subjects can be simple, sometimes sideways: A deck of cards at the brewery après. A trailhead sign on the way down. Trail runners in the backseat. Your friend mid-sip with an overpriced coffee. Underwear hanging from a tree.

That’s the memory photo.

And look—this isn’t about purity. Sometimes you should photograph the main thing. Beautiful photos inspire and move people. This magazine wouldn’t exist without incredibly talented photographers and adventurers.

I’m just saying we don’t need to do it every time. For me, the moments that land the hardest are the ones I stay fully in. And when I leave the moment to photograph it, I lose the reason I came outside in the first place.

My best photos don’t compete with the moment. They come after it.

***

At some point in that discovery, film entered the … picture.

Not because it’s cool again (it is, always has been). And not because it’s better in some moral way. Mostly because it made the practice easier.

That’s because film adds friction.

Friction is the introduction of slowness and resistance into an experience—sometimes by design, sometimes by circumstance. Just enough drag and effort to keep you focused on the moment instead of rushing to the next thing.

That’s what film does so well. ​​A film camera doesn’t hurry you. There aren’t many frames. No instant payoff. By the time I see the photos, the moment’s already lived somewhere else. And if a shot misses? Who cares. I was there.

Film introduces the same kind of friction you find in old bikes, wired headphones, and print magazines. Things that are less convenient than their modern alternatives, but offer presence in return.

The magic of memory photos is that they work in a similar way. They keep you inside the experience. You stay with the peak moment, and you document later. Like film, they delay gratification. They slow your exit from the moment just enough to let it fully land.

That’s friction, too. Like walking instead of driving. Slower, sure. Less efficient. But you notice things you’d otherwise pass right by. And when it comes to being outdoors, that’s kind of the whole point.

These days, I’ve been seeing friction everywhere. My buddy showed up to a party with his parents' old VHS collection like he'd struck gold. My neighbor bikes to work on a beat-up 90s fixie that probably weighs forty pounds. Another friend deleted Instagram and started carrying a flip phone—when I asked why, he just shrugged and said, 'I got tired of being available.' We all know someone like this. So effortlessly analogue they make my thrifted Aztec jacket feel like it still has tags on it.

People are already reaching for small limits. Small delays. Paying just a bit more attention.

Memory photos just happen to fit right in.

***

Back at the lake, the sun is setting. We’re pretty quick on the downhills, which is good because I forgot my headlamp again.

We start moving. Not a soul left on the trail. No chatter, no distractions. Just the feel of the dirt under my runners and my mind wandering where it wants to go.

And one thought keeps circling back, more discreet than all the analogue talk, but harder to shake.

What happens if we don't take the photo at all?

At first, it feels wrong. Like the moment might slip away if you don’t grab it fast enough. No proof. No backup.

But as we move through the trees, that thought fades to a rosy realization: The moment doesn’t disappear, it stretches. You stay a little longer. You notice little things—the way the light shifts, colors moving across the water. And later—hours, days, hell, even years later—the memory is still there.

Because you were.

All it really takes is something small. A photo of the creek near the parking lot. Sunglasses on the dash. Nothing fancy. But enough to send the whole thing rushing back. Not a consolation prize for skipping the “real” shot—just a reminder that the experience stood on its own.

We jog the rest of the way down and slide into the car with that warm, glowing tired that somehow still feels energizing. Smooth ride back through the canyon in the dark. No moon, so the stars start showing off.

When I get home, my roommate already has the fire going out back and a few friends circled around it. Someone passes me a chair.

“How was it?”

I tell them about the trail. About the lake. About the aspens and the wind blowing over the ridge.

“Wild,” someone says. “Got any photos?”

I check my camera roll.

Nothing.

I came home from a perfect hike with zero photos. Not even a damn memory photo.

Turns out the best way to remember a moment is to not photograph it.

I laugh. “Nah,” I say. “Grab me a Banquet, porfa.”