WHAT MEMORY RESEARCH SAYS

Look first,
then shoot.

A photo can stand in for remembering.

A museum visitor seen from behind holding up a phone to photograph a large abstract painting in a quiet gallery — AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.

Look before you snap
Zoom in on a detail
Go back to your photos
Small habits, sharper memories

In a museum study, people remembered fewer of the objects they photographed than the ones they simply looked at. Psychologists call it the photo-taking-impairment effect, and how you take the picture seems to matter.

Updated 16 October 2026

THE SHORT ANSWER

The camera remembers,
so you may not.

Several studies find photographing something can weaken memory of it.
How and why you take the photo changes the result.

THE EFFECT

Fewer objects remembered

On a guided museum tour, people who photographed whole objects remembered fewer objects and fewer details than when they only observed them.

See the studies

THE TWIST

Zooming in helped

When people zoomed in to photograph a specific part of an object, their memory was not impaired, even for the parts left out of the frame.

Check your habit

THE TRADE-OFF

Sights up, sounds down

A 2017 study found people who chose to take photos recognised more of what they saw but remembered less of what the audio guide said.

What to try

A QUICK HABIT CHECK

How do you
take your photos?

Pick what you usually do at an exhibition. The bar shows how well the studies suggest you remember what you saw.

Based on Henkel (2014), Barasch and others (2017) and Shares and Storm (2022). Museum and lab studies.

Habit check

Choose a habitJust lookingOne shot of the whole objectSeveral shots of each thingZooming in on a detailFree choice, with an audio guide

Just lookingBest recall

In the museum study, objects people only observed were remembered better than objects they photographed as a whole.

One shot of the whole objectWeaker recall

Photographing each object as a whole meant remembering fewer objects, fewer details and less about where they were.

Several shots of each thingStill weaker

In 2022 lab studies, taking five photos of a painting, even five different ones, still meant worse memory than just looking.

Zooming in on a detailNo loss found

Zooming in to photograph one part removed the impairment, and memory for the rest of the object was just as strong.

Free choice, with an audio guideMixed

People free to take photos recognised more objects visually but remembered less of the audio guide than people without a camera.

Sources: Henkel, Psychological Science 25(2), 2014; Barasch, Diehl, Silverman and Zauberman, Psychological Science, 2017; Shares and Storm, Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 2022, as reported by the BPS Research Digest.

TWO NUMBERS WORTH KNOWING

More photos
did not fix it.

One figure on taking lots of shots,
one on how often the trade-off appeared.

5 photos

Photos of each painting, memory still worse

In three lab studies with about 400 people, taking five photos of each painting still led to poorer memory than only observing it, even when the five shots had to be different.

SHARES AND STORM · 2022

4 experiments

Experiments showing the sight and sound trade-off

Across four experiments, people who chose to take photos recognised more of what they saw but remembered less of what they heard.

BARASCH AND OTHERS · 2017

The two lines of research measured different things: directed photos of set objects in Henkel's study, and photos people chose to take in Barasch's. Both found that photo-taking changes what we remember.

A visitor seen from behind standing still and looking closely at an old carved stone relief, phone put away — AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.

FOUR HABITS TO TRY

Keep the camera,
keep the memory.

None of the studies says never take photos. They suggest a few ways to make the pictures work with your memory rather than instead of it.

Look before you lift the phone
Objects people only observed were remembered best, so give each thing a proper look first.
Zoom in on one detail
Framing a specific part took more attention and removed the memory loss in the museum study.
Listen with the camera down
Photo-takers remembered less of the audio guide, so pause the camera while someone is talking.
Go back to your pictures
Henkel notes that to remember, we have to access and interact with our photos, not just amass them.

WHY IT HAPPENS

Two ideas,
still being tested.

One idea is offloading: counting on the camera to record the moment, so we do not attend to it fully. Yet in the 2022 studies people knew a memory test was coming and the effect still appeared.

Another idea is disengagement: taking a photo pulls attention away from the thing itself. Zooming in may work because it brings attention back to what you are looking at.

Hands holding a phone close to an ancient clay vase in a display case, framing a small painted detail — AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.

Questions

Questions people ask

Does taking photos make you forget?

It can weaken memory of what you photograph. In a 2014 museum study, people remembered fewer objects and fewer details when they photographed whole objects than when they only looked at them.

What is the photo-taking-impairment effect?

The name psychologist Linda Henkel gave to the finding that photographing objects can lead to worse memory for them than simply observing them.

Does zooming in help?

In Henkel's second study, zooming in to photograph a specific part of an object removed the impairment, and memory for the parts not zoomed in on was just as strong.

Is it better to take lots of photos?

Not in the studies so far. In 2022 lab studies with about 400 people, taking five photos of each painting still led to poorer memory than just observing it.

Can taking photos ever help memory?

A 2017 study found that people who chose to take photos recognised more objects visually, but remembered less of what they heard, such as an audio guide.

Look first,
then shoot.