There is no way of attaching smells to photos or videos as of yet. But smells are a big part of how we experience places, relations, and time.

Smells have an emotional footprint. I go through a forest and there are minute changes to the cocktail of smells I am exposed to. I react emotionally to these changes way before I am aware of them. These smells speak directly to a part of my brain that is much older than my prefrontal cortex.

It’s freshness and joy and sadness and nostalgia all mixed together. It’s old memories of places and moments I’ve long forgotten but they are still somehow lingering in my olfactive memory.

It smells of spring.

It smells like this particular place and moment, different from anything that ever was or will be. But it brings back all the springs since the beginning of time.

You might also like this post on textures in black and white, this one on watching the light from the shadows, or this one on the kind of photography that speaks to me.