Does it help to put yourself into the scene at a locus?

Yes — imagining the scene from your own point of view, or with you acting in it, makes it more vivid and memorable.

Seeing yourself inside the image — you kicking the giant rake on your doormat, the moon squashing you into the sofa — recruits more of your memory (movement, body, emotion) than watching a scene from outside. First-person, interactive, slightly personal images are stickier than detached little dioramas viewed from across the room.