Photographic Memories

On Nascar on Saturday night as we waited patiently for the race to start (which took 3 hours past actual start time due to rain) the announcers were burning time by having random discussions, showing random race tracks, interviewing random people and the like. All in all just trying to keep the people at home amused long enough that they wouldn't turn to another channel and watch Friends or the Simpsons instead.
Once the race finally started the fans in the stands began snapping pictures like crazy of the cars coming out onto the track. The announcer made the comment "and there go the fans taking their photographic memories." This got me to thinking, do you suppose that people remember things because they take pictures of them and look back on the pictures and that triggers the memory, or because they genuinely remember things. For example I know that when I was a baby I had a teddy cake for my birthday, I remember playing in the cake, but I also know there are pictures of me playing in the cake so I wonder if it is because I actually remember the moment or because I've seen pictures of the moment so many times it becomes a memory?
Similarly I wonder if you told a lie enough times if it would become true. I had a sociology professor who always quoted WI Thomas "What we perceive to be true becomes true in its consequences." Perhaps if we told a falsity enough times and in enough details we may eventually believe it to be true and live with the consequences of that truth. For example some people repress bad memories from childhood and only after years of psychiatry to they come to terms with what they repressed. Similarly perhaps we could create our own realities based on lies if we truly believed them.