Do we learn to see?

thuggins said:

Laymen looked at people's faces, and that was pretty much it. Artists scanned the whole picture, paying particular attention to patterns and textures. They hardly paid any attention to faces.

This matches my own experience. Most people seem incapable of taking a picture that doesn't have a face in it. I'm always asked how I can take pictures that "look like postcards".

Click to expand...

I've been quoting that Eggleston bit too much, but I think it still encapsulates a lot that is true about making photography an art, and builds up on what you just said:

William Eggleston said:

I am afraid that there are more people than I can imagine who can go no further than appreciating a picture that is a rectangle with an object in the middle of it, which they can identify.

They don't care what is around the object as long as nothing interferes with the object itself, right in the centre.

Even after the lessons of Winogrand and Friedlander, they don't get it. They respect their work because they are told by respectable institutions that they are important artists, but what they really want to see is a picture with a figure or an object in the middle of it. They want something obvious.

The blindness is apparent when someone lets slip the word 'snapshot'. Ignorance can always be covered by 'snapshot'. The word has never had any meaning. I am at war with the obvious.

Click to expand...

Afterward from The Democratic Forest
William Eggleston in Conversation with Mark Holborn

Our species has evolved over millions of years. Our own set of tools, the ones, at least, that we use in making or viewing photographs, is a very recent development. It is of no use to hunters/gatherers to cultivate an abstract sense of space. For them, survival depends not upon understanding context; rather, they must separate plants and animals, their food, from context.

Imagine two stone age hunters standing at the edge of the forest. One says to the other "I think it would look better if that bison would move about three feet over to the left". No, the appropriate thing to do is to nail it right in the heart with an arrow. Without being able to center one's attention on the vital spot, the bull's eye, the community doesn't eat.

I believe this instinct is alive and well in all of us. The cultivation of an appreciation for the contents of a frame, a sense of a whole space, is a sort of add-on, a luxury, if you think about it. In order for it to be meaningful, we have to have time and enough prosperity that we don't have to scrap for each meal. It doesn't come with the package we are born with. Many people, as Mr. Eggleston points out, really have no interest in developing that sense.

If circumstances change, and we find ourselves refugees as so many are today, we will need to rely upon the more basic and one could say primitive ability to isolate what we can eat, what we can shoot (!) from its context. Without being able to do that, we'd be helpless without our social support structures. While I am committed to a broader and more inclusive reading of context, an abstract spatial sensitivity, I think we too often forget how we depend on more basic skills and have a tendency to think ourselves superior because we've gone beyond them. I think it is important to go beyond them, but at least as important, not to lose them in the process.

bowzart said:

Imagine two stone age hunters standing at the edge of the forest. One says to the other "I think it would look better if that bison would move about three feet over to the left". No, the appropriate thing to do is to nail it right in the heart with an arrow. Without being able to center one's attention on the vital spot, the bull's eye, the community doesn't eat.

Click to expand...

I think an equally strong argument could be made for those hunters seeing the entire "picture". A hunter with tunnel vision would probably be either a hungry or a dead one. To make a kill but not notice the leopard in the tree or the lioness in the grass off to the side is not healthy. In fact, I would think that those hunters not only took in the whole visual picture, but also adding all the other senses to create a "picture" that included smells, touch (in the form of wind blowing across the hair on their skin) and sound.

Another strong argument might be made that the propensity to focus on only the center might be a more recent trend...started with specialization and hurried along by hours of staring at TV's and now computers.

Vaughn

When I started in photography at about the age of 12 I think I was more interested in cameras as mechanical objects and the images I produced were not particularly inspiring. They were the typical rectangle with an object in the centre as mentioned above.

It is only during the last ten years (approximately) that I have started to notice different lighting, shapes within the image and to think about composition. I am still interested in the mechanical aspect, especially when looking inside a Compur shutter and being amazed by the fact that someone designed something so complex without the aid of a computer CAD system but (hopefully) my skills in seeing and producing a pleasing image have improved over the years.


Steve.

Vaughn said:

I think an equally strong argument could be made for those hunters seeing the entire "picture". A hunter with tunnel vision would probably be either a hungry or a dead one.

Click to expand...

You are certainly correct. I think that it is likely that both of these visual modes would be necessary for survival. I appreciate your pointing this out.

There is a difference, though, between the kind of vision that we experience in photography, where what's included has the boundaries of the frame, and the more global perspective that our hunters must have had. Theirs would be, it seems to me, more of a self-awareness in context, and, as you rightly suggest, would not be simply visual at all. It is entirely possible to make photographs with little or none of that, although the analogy extends to that factor in photography as well. One could easily back off the edge of a cliff while trying to include just a little more within the frame. I've never done that with a cliff, but I certainly have stepped off a curb inadvertently.

I've always been amused at our term "shooting". I can't recall whether I posted an image of a deer that a student gave me, where the diagonals intersected exactly where you would want to hit the deer with your bullet or arrow to drop it on the spot. I won't put it here (again? This thread has gone on for awhile and I don't want to repeat myself) but if you'd like to see it, here's a link: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/38/108588162_b0a9ad121e_o.jpg

Another strong argument might be made that the propensity to focus on only the center might be a more recent trend...started with specialization and hurried along by hours of staring at TV's and now computers.

Click to expand...

This is an interesting idea, especially the part about specialization. I once read (I believe it was in the Encyclopedia Britannica 1910 edition in an article about him) that Goethe was the last person who could be legitimately identified as a "renaissance man", someone who had a command of all areas of knowledge. After him, according to that article, the quantity of information accelerated to levels that no one can comprehend more than a small part of it. If it is true that the source of that was the 1910 Britannica, what would that author say today? In an environment of information such as we have, we have to specialize or at least limit our field. In doing so, we exclude vast amounts of material. To have that global sense of "self in context" would be some feat!

What came instantly to my mind concerning the tendency to focus on the center was the religious icon; hardly a recent development. I think the central focus with the elimination of even the frame itself has been with us for a very long time. I'm more inclined to see our notions of two dimensional space as the more recent phenomenon, having its roots in the nineteenth century, especially with the impressionists.

Recognizing the beauty and strangeness in something familiar might be the first step back in order to move forward for someone re-learning to see.

Moving beyond a mere picture of a thing and embracing the whole of a visual composition is what I believe to be one of the the first steps in "photographic seeing" but to move beyond even that, for gravity and tension to carry on beyond the edge of the frame, and the "center" of the photograph to play with other "centers" is something that I believe carries far past simple evolutionary conditionings.

The gatherer would be inhibited by predatory vision, however artists are supposedly hunters.

Interesting thread.

JBrunner said:

Moving beyond a mere picture of a thing and embracing the whole of a visual composition is what I believe to be one of the the first steps in "photographic seeing" but to move beyond even that, for gravity and tension to carry on beyond the edge of the frame, and the "center" of the photograph to play with other "centers" is something that I believe carries far past simple evolutionary conditionings.

Click to expand...

Are we getting into a region where language becomes troublesome? Or, can you help us better understand where you are pointing? I think we are a very diverse group, and I wouldn't want to assume that what I find in your statement would correspond to what it might mean for anyone else.

JBrunner said:

Recognizing the beauty and strangeness in something familiar might be the first step back in order to move forward for someone re-learning to see.

Well put!

The gatherer would be inhibited by predatory vision, however artists are supposedly hunters.

Click to expand...

Artist as hunters...I "see" myself as more of a gatherer, I suppose. I do use the term "shooting", but relunctantly. Hunting is a rather manly thing...and since in relatively recent times (since the beginning of the written word, anyway), hunting has been given an over-riding importance...seeing how history has been written mostly by men.

It is far more likely that stone-age man (woman) were more gatherer -- and scavenger of already dead things -- than hunter.

But in reality, to put ourselves into the minds of the primitive hunter/gatherers and to determine how they thought and saw, is several times more difficult than it would be for someone who spoke no Chinese to think in Chinese.

Vaughn

Vaughn said:

...It is far more likely that stone-age man (woman) were more gatherer -- and scavenger of already dead things -- than hunter.

Click to expand...

I wonder. Gathering? Yes, we know that there was/is a lot of harvesting. But scavenging? I don't think so. Having photographed thousands of projectile points for a major archaeological project in central Washington (US) I can tell you for sure; those people were really, really into hunting! They had a dizzying variety of points for animals of every size, from small birds on up.

We think of stone age people as "primitive" much to our own loss. Their technologies were often very highly developed and they had civilizations that were quite advanced beyond the conceptions we have of them, including well developed long distance trade. Even the term "stone age" suggests rock throwing, rather than launching projectiles tipped with sharp glass - well, stone, but some of them are indeed essentially the same as glass. If you have ever felt a newly knapped point, you know it can be sharper than a razor. Some of the points are poorly made, some very well made, but we know that people have different skill capacities even in the corporate world.

Why would a cave man draw on the wall ?

Darkroom is a cave.

Man oh man , look around, look at the surroundings , look at the places people live in , those caves have symetries , they have walls ( frames) , it's not just TV , the things we wear ...eat...

Do we learn to see?

John said we forgot how to , we knew , but we forgot and need to re-learn... I agree

We need to relearn daily/hourly/momentarily , but how? close your eyes... funny, ha?

There is nothing like to see something for the first time or ability to see that way all the time, child-like with the knowledge of an elder.
So, how do you do that ? By beeng self aware all the time! YES , madness, is it not? you actually become so sensitive to surroundings that you can not function,I mean you become so sensitive that when you see , I mean really see , it hurts , physically hurts.

I've been there it is an amazing state of being ,

BUT

Reality , yes that miserable , miserable thing we call reality , it seem to always pull us back , does it not?

Oh well,

May be it's only me and what I write is all weird to most even here, among people that can see ...

ILYA

jnanian said:

we all know how to see, but we forgot and had to remember.

Click to expand...

I think these are wise words. How many times a week do you drive down a road where you don't even see the traffic signs anymore? Then you compare that to driving down a road you've never driven before. Here you are forced to look out for things that might kill you, you are forced outside your day to day comfort zone.
If people were forced to look at things a different way, beyond their comfort zone, beyond how they normally look at things, I'm sure there would be a few revelations.

Many times I find that few people understand what I photograph. They say 'nice picture' and then proceeds to talk about something else, because it doesn't mean anything to them. The hard work we put ourselves through to realize our own vision, feelings, desires, what have you, does likely not produce post card material. Another photographer or artist might appreciate it, because they've practiced, they have forced themselves to look beyond the norm.

Aren't we all surrounded with what seems like a tidal wave of mediocrity? How many digital (and film) snapshots exist in the world? How many photographs of a face smack in the middle of the frame compared to finely crafted portrait, figure, landscape, street, or architectural photographs? Mediocrity is the norm, and people have to take a huge leap beyond the norm to appreciate and study a work of art that is of excellent composition, meaning, shape, tone, and skill. Or even to recognize it.

Seven years ago when I first picked up my camera, my negatives were crap. Today some of the negatives I create mean something to me. So I have evolved, I have learned. But it's impossible to tell whether I had to re-learn what I already knew, or if I invented my own wheel. I do know that I have deliberately forced myself beyond my old way of seeing, and that I continue to challenge myself to see, to explore, to find new things in places I would have never considered years ago.

bowzart said:

I wonder. Gathering? Yes, we know that there was/is a lot of harvesting. But scavenging? I don't think so...

Click to expand...

Good points. But "stone-age" merely means before the working of metal, where the tools were stone, bone and wood (and teeth). I have heard the use of 30 hours per week as the average time it takes for a hunter/gatherer to supply food for their family (I believe based on present day hunter/gatherer tribes). Granted this number varies greatly by season and geographical location. But as an average figure, this leaves a lot of daylight to perfect skills such as knapping, bead-making, basketry, et al.

Those points in Washington are relatively recent, especially if one accepts the migration theory from Asia, in human history...and I consider human history to include pre-humans. One has to assume that there was a time before the knowledge of point-making and bow-making...when one did throw rocks or bash animals over the head with a stick or stab them with a fire-hardened stick...or be thankful for what a cat may have left after eating its full of its kill. Hundreds, if not thousands of centuries of unknown history because there are little artifacts to associate with the people who made little.

It was only the advent of beer that gave man a reason to give up the happy nomad live and stay in one place long enough to grow the grain needed to make it...

Vaughn

Vaughn said:

It was only the advent of beer that gave man a reason to give up the happy nomad live and stay in one place long enough to grow the grain needed to make it...
Vaughn

Click to expand...

Yes, of this we can be pretty sure. Of the rest, who can tell.

arigram said:

A good photographer should become a baby again: see things like for the first time, curiosity and discovery become most important,

Click to expand...

This is true, but has been difficult for me to return to the time "curiosity and discovery become most important".
My best years with a camera were the first years, when I knew nothing about photography, cameras, s curves, f stops, the "right" film etc. I just framed and ....click.....then that was that. No preconceptions I suppose.

Now in my later years I see sometimes that this may come back to me. I'm waiting, and taking pictures in the meantime.

ilya1963 said:

BUT

Reality , yes that miserable , miserable thing we call reality , it seem to always pull us back , does it not?

Click to expand...

Reality, our common consensual fantasy? Is that what you mean?

Believe me, Ilya, what you write is not weird.

bowzart said:

Reality, our common consensual fantasy? Is that what you mean?

Believe me, Ilya, what you write is not weird.

Click to expand...

Yes that is .

Thank you, Larry , I have enjoyed your depth of field. Rare stuff.

thank you,