As I type this comment I've got an image of a girl I saw yesterday fixed in my mind, as if looking at a picture of her.
I also assumed this was the norm.
I have a quite good memory and will easily recall events but the image is not very precise. I might not remember how you were dressed just 10 minutes ago; hard to build precise pictures with such a visual memory.
Relatedly, if you tell me a story, I'll probably not have a precise picture of it in my mind. I noticed some people do have pictures very quickly and may take advantage of it when speaking to have some fun.
I still picture things in my mind. And I don't need to close my eyes. If you tell me about some event I'll probably locate it in my (not very precise) representation of the month / the year if you said when it happened / will happen. I will have some visual representation of what you are telling me or what I am reading, but do not ask me what colors are things or how people are dressed.
If you wonder how I manage to picture things without being able to tell the color they have, well, I can't figure it out neither.
Towards the end I debeloped a photographic memory for faces. I could go out for an evening, and later I could see all the faces I interacted with that evening crystal clear, and draw their likeness referencing only my mind's eye.
When I stopped practicing portraiture the magical ability went away.
When I draw 3D shapes, I just "visualize" the shape on the surface and trace it.