The fact is that you already do have a photographic memory afterall how do you know what your car looked like if you didn't have a copy of the print in your mind.
Our mind and memory works best by association so that when we learn something new it incorporates the information with what we already know. It's a time saving device often we want to know the important meaning of text rather than to have the ability to re-read the text. I found it interesting to note that the few people who were able to copy a piece of text from their memory have little or no understanding about what they wrote.
If you want to remember something and to recall what you remember it has to have meaning and is usually meaning that is worth something to you.
What is really more useful. Understanding something that you read or see so that you can use the information whenever you need or storing the information ready to read when you need it.
If you photoread 100 books on a similar subject your mind is going to sort the common information and ideas from each of these books. In other words the pre searching has already been done and the information sorted so that it becomes more quickly accessible. A eidetic picture of a page from a 250 page book may or may not contain the information you are looking for but you still have to regular read it then.
It's much more useful when you zero in to the data and the information comes to you in the sense of knowing, occasionally you'll hear words and occasionally partial pictures. Rather than looking to have the mind present it to you in a certain fashion it's much more useful to train the conscious mind to notice that the information *is* being presented to you.
Alex
