An optical recording method includes providing an optical recording medium capable of forming both a refractive index grating and an absorption grating by light irradiation; Fourier transforming with the same lens a signal beam that represents binary digital data with a brightness image and a reference beam such that they are focused at a point outside the optical recording medium; irradiating the Fourier transformed signal beam and reference beam simultaneously onto the optical recording medium and forming a diffraction grating at the optical recording medium according to an interference fringe between the signal beam and the reference beam, or according to an interference fringe within the signal beam itself, and recording the signal beam as a hologram.