All this is why I feel the perfection of photography contradicts the needs and nature of humanity.

It’s interesting, though, that many people cannot accept their memory is flawed. One of the most naïve statements said is one of the most common: “I know what I saw”. I have memories of seeing a UFO, and driving through the end of a rainbow, and even though those memories are strong in my mind, I know they are not real. Everyone has false memories. Not everyone realises it. Indeed, it’s quite difficult to realise it: it requires acceptance of imperfection, of ego fallibility; it requires maturity.

That’s why I suggest the perfection of photography serves to reinforce human failing. People see photographs are perfect, and by association many feel their memories are just as perfect. It’s no coincidence that a good memory is called a photographic memory.

This is why it is important to mar photographs. Damage them, break them up, make them imperfect: remind people that memory is full of egomaniac fabrications. At the very least, do not hide imperfections they gather over time. Sometimes, those imperfections make something beautiful. Usually, they’re just grit and grime.

Since all memory is flawed, since a good memory is photographic memory, my work draws attention to the imperfections of memory over time with photographs that are flawed by time. That’s why many of my old photographs, rescanned here, are not cleaned. Cleaning a photograph is like cleaning an alibi: it’s telling a lie. The humanity is in the imperfections, the scratches, the dust. My photography is reality, and will stay that way.