ENTROPY

winger · Nov 4, 2013

I don't really go all out towards entropy, but I try to allow for happy accidents. When I do Mordançage, there's definitely entropy involved.
I happen to be working on a book review article for a photo club in PA and was looking in Tao of Photography by Tom Ang - the two quotes on the page I opened to are:
Those who oppose the flow of Tao end up being called "unlucky." - Tao Te Ching
The Wise succeed without intending to do so. - Lao Tzu

I spent the first few years of photography just doing things as I felt like doing them, then spent a few years being VERY methodical. Now I'm leaning more towards in between the two approaches with some experiments just because.

NedL · Nov 5, 2013

Gerald C Koch said:
Entropy is defined as a measure of the disorder (randomness) of a system. As such it is a very basic concept which is not confined to only thermodynamic systems. Consider a jar filled with equal numbers of black and white marbles. The black marbles are at the bottom of the jar. Shake the jar and we increase the entropy since some white marbles are now where blacks were and vice versa. The order of the system has been changed.

Using statistical mechanics equations representing the three laws of thermodynamics can be derived using only pure mathematics without any reference to physical reality.

Very good!
Also you might come across the term in information theory and particularly in discussions of "entropy sources" for encryption. This use is not quite the same as the use in physics that Gerald described well. Shannon wrote the seminal paper about information theory and formed an equation from probabilistic considerations that is similar to the equation for entropy in thermodynamics. There was a debate about what to call the quantity and he ended up using the term "entropy" due to the mathematical similarity, but later I think he regretted that choice because the relationship with physical entropy more form than anything else and it leads to some misleading analogies.

Apologies, since I think I skidded off the right brain topic, and whether it's chaos or luck or serendipity I like it.

Ken Nadvornick · Nov 5, 2013

For all of you A.S. Eddington fans, I've always really enjoyed the mental imagery conjured up by his entropy-related term The Arrow of Time* where an increase in chaos defines the forward direction of that metric.

And not coincidently, I think, isn't that also a nearly perfect description of John's approach to photography?

Ken

* As defined by him in The Nature of the Physical World, p.68, Cambridge University Press, 1929, wherein he begins its discussion with the wonderfully marvelous observation, "The great thing about time is that it goes on."

markbarendt · Nov 5, 2013

blansky said:
You want entropy, photograph children.

Yes!

Then photograph the same children in their 40s, 60s, ...

Edit: Their parents may be good stand-in's if you can't wait a few decades.

ntenny · Nov 5, 2013

NedL said:
Also you might come across the term in information theory and particularly in discussions of "entropy sources" for encryption.

I was going to point that out if you didn't, not just to show off my hypertrophied left brain but because I think it's actually kind of relevant to photographic aesthetics. Bear with me here.

See, in the transition from the actual subject to the photographic image, we keep losing information. The photons are intrinsically a little fuzzy from the moment they bounce off the subject, but more obviously, information disappears into lens distortion, the limitations of the film and development process, etc., etc. If you go in for technical terminology you can look at this as a perpetual decrease, at every stage, of the Shannon entropy of the communication channel between the original object and the image.

That's a fifty-cent way of saying "everything you do degrades the image".

Well, there's one aesthetic that's all about minimizing these losses and maintaining a "clean" channel as much as possible, so that the information content of the view in front of the camera is preserved. To achieve that, you'd want dead-sharp, distortion-free lenses, grainless film with enormous dynamic range, and so on. I think it's safe to say that this aesthetic is not the one our illustrious OP is working in most of the time!

At the other extreme, if you have an impossibly terrible channel that loses all the information of the source, you're not really committing photography. You may end up with an image, but that image will have no correlation with what was in front of the camera, because all that information will have trickled off. Nobody does this on purpose, but I guess it's what happens when you leave the lens cap on, or overexpose to the extent that the whole negative goes to Dmax.

Somewhere in between, there are infinitely many sweet spots, where the amount of information loss looks "right" to someone. And what I find interesting about much of your work, John, is that it goes a long way out towards that second extreme---further out, many times, than I would have expected to find an interesting image, and yet, there one is. Tons of detailed information about the "source" object has been bled off in the photographic process, and what's left is an unexpected substratum that often has something surprising to say.

I don't have the knack of seeing those hidden messages in advance, although once in a while I stumble on one by accident. I admire those who manage to tease them out regularly, and it's one of the areas where I hope to do some learning over the rest of my photographic life. Turns out, that right brain is a creative badass if you turn it loose in the right way!

-NT

cliveh · Nov 5, 2013

blansky said:
You want entropy, photograph children.

Or animals.

batwister · Nov 5, 2013

John Earley said:
Entropy: Sending your film to a less than stellar lab and getting back someone elses photos.

...which are better than your own.

gleaf · Nov 5, 2013

I recommend getting a copy of "Art and Fear" by David Bayles and Ted Orland.
There is an e-book addition.

batwister · Nov 5, 2013

Also, 'Art and Ear' by Gauguin.

But seriously, ^ that book has been on my reading list for too long.

Black Dog · Nov 5, 2013

+1 for Art and Fear!

NedL · Nov 5, 2013

ntenny said:
I was going to point that out if you didn't, not just to show off my hypertrophied left brain but because I think it's actually kind of relevant to photographic aesthetics. Bear with me here....

NT, Wow. That's an amazing way to think about it! A solid actual connection!

johnielvis · Nov 10, 2013

entropy is a purely theoretical thing--it's a convenient measure of the "state" of some substance. It has no basis in reality as a tangible item. You can interpret it in different ways--"disorder" is the most kool it seems--because it makes it even spookier and the ideas behind it more "you gotta have big brains to understand it".

There are physical processes that create "disorder" but that makes no nevermind--energy is used to restore order.

it's efficiency--that's another measure that means the same thing.

if the entropy of the universe must increase, can you prove that it is infinite, as it must therefore be? someone, please do so.

markbarendt · Nov 10, 2013

johnielvis

Entropy is very real and tangible.

We try to organize and build our lives (expending much energy to do so), all-the-while the world around us rips, tears, and hammers away at that organization. When we run out of energy to organize/build/maintain it starts falling apart.

I could provide an example from politics here, but I will behave.

entropy |ˈentrəpē|
noun
1 Physics a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system.(Symbol: S )
2 lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder: a marketplace where entropy reigns supreme.
3 (in information theory) a logarithmic measure of the rate of transfer of information in a particular message or language.
DERIVATIVES
entropic |enˈträpik|adjective.
entropically |enˈträpik(ə)lē|adverb
ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from en-2inside + Greek tropē transformation.

entropy
noun
life is a struggle against entropy: deterioration, degeneration, crumbling, decline, degradation, decomposition, breaking down, collapse; disorder, chaos.

johnielvis · Nov 10, 2013

markbarendt, you misunderstand--there are physical measurable things, like mass and temperature, and there are things that are concepts--derived things that have a significance attached to them but still must be calculated. Just because entropy is in the dictionary doesn't mean that it's a physical thing similar to mass.

There is no iso standard measure of entropy like the base kilogram weight.

I can find many nouns in the dictionary also--that doesn't mean that there are physical things associated with them. Concepts are nouns. The concept being discussed in this herepost--it is a thing, but it's not a physical thing--you can't measure it.

markbarendt · Nov 10, 2013

johnielvis said:
There is no iso standard measure of entropy like the base kilogram weight.

Actually there is a scientific description/definition/formulas that define it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(classical_thermodynamics) There are also countless examples happening around us day in and day out that prove its existence.

I do agree that entropy can happen within abstract, intangible, metaphysical systems like; politics, relationships, culture, my psyche, family dynamics, emotions, work situations...

To directly photograph these can be, how should I put this, a real challenge.

Our medium needs something physical for the light to bounce off of, we need the visible physical manifestations of entropy to show themselves in a context that makes it understandable to the viewer. (Painters have it easy here by comparison.)

Ken Nadvornick · Nov 10, 2013

Aging is an expression of entropy. It doesn't get any more real than that. Look in your mirror today. Then again tomorrow. Or in your coffin six months after.

Ken

Gerald C Koch · Nov 10, 2013

Entropy is often called "time's arrow." Since for practical systems entropy must always increase (the Third Law) it shows that time cannot run backwards. Thus people age but do not get younger.

Ken Nadvornick · Nov 10, 2013

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Ken

removed account4 · Nov 10, 2013

this thread has been a fun read.
i am glad there is a science behind my carelessness

i think it is a great thing to see how the other other side of the road lives
and that means sometimes, i focus, meter, stop to f16, expose, process normally and print on ilford photo paper

in the end the entropy photos look almost the same, not really sure what that says about the world and reality i live in.

blansky · Nov 11, 2013

Gerald C Koch said:
Entropy is often called "time's arrow." Since for practical systems entropy must always increase (the Third Law) it shows that time cannot run backwards. Thus people age but do not get younger.

There are some interesting mind games that say:

If you travel at the speed of light away from earth for 30 years and back for 30 years, you would arrive back being 60 years older but earth would have aged 4,500,000 years. Something like that.

There are other interesting theories that say that time is not linear. All time could be happening at once. You could die today and come back as a child in 1600.

There are also anti matter theories that state that when you make a decision between various choices, that on another plane, you are making all the other choices as well.

For some reason I love this stuff.... time may just be a human construct to make us feel some comfort but really it's far more complicated than our limited senses can comprehend.

StoneNYC · Nov 11, 2013

blansky said:
There are some interesting mind games that say:

If you travel at the speed of light away from earth for 30 years and back for 30 years, you would arrive back being 60 years older but earth would have aged 4,500,000 years. Something like that.

There are other interesting theories that say that time is not linear. All time could be happening at once. You could die today and come back as a child in 1600.

There are also anti matter theories that state that when you make a decision between various choices, that on another plane, you are making all the other choices as well.

For some reason I love this stuff.... time may just be a human construct to make us feel some comfort but really it's far more complicated than our limited senses can comprehend.

Haha a multiverse of entropy!

Gerald C Koch · Nov 11, 2013

blansky said:
There are some interesting mind games

One recently proposed idea is that of TARDIS regions in space. These regions are bigger on the inside than on the outside. They get this designation from the name of the doctor's phone booth ship in Doctor Who.

Turning this notion toward photography, have you ever looked at a print and realized that it contained within it several other smaller images each of which would make an interesting photograph. It is an interesting game that I often pursue. Sometimes I find a smaller image to be better than the print itself. A photographer needs to look carefully at his scene. Sometimes less is more.

ntenny · Nov 11, 2013

blansky said:
There are some interesting mind games that say:

If you travel at the speed of light away from earth for 30 years and back for 30 years, you would arrive back being 60 years older but earth would have aged 4,500,000 years. Something like that.

That's not actually a mind game, it's a pretty well established real phenomenon from special relativity. In a small way, it's a practical concern with GPS signals---their timing is affected by relativistic effects, not by a very large amount but enough to have practical effects on the position computation.

There are also anti matter theories that state that when you make a decision between various choices, that on another plane, you are making all the other choices as well.

Quantum mechanics, not antimatter. That's the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum theory; it's probably not in itself actually a "theory", in the sense that it's not testable. Trying to think too hard about this stuff is the quick route from physics to epistemology; the latter is an interesting place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.

For some reason I love this stuff.... time may just be a human construct to make us feel some comfort but really it's far more complicated than our limited senses can comprehend.

Well, the thermodynamic kind of entropy sort of argues that time *isn't* "just" a human construct, it's a property of physical systems; at least the "arrow" nature of time is. Relativity says time isn't as synchronized as it looks at the human scale, quantum mechanics says the far end of the arrow isn't as predictable as it looks at the human scale, but the basic concept of time (best defined, I think, as "time is what keeps everything from happening all at once") seems to hold together as a "real" thing, at least inasmuch as we can call anything "real".

I submit that this discussion isn't even off-topic, in that photography is fundamentally about (the illusion of) defying time by turning temporary light into permanent light. As such, anything that can be said about time should lead to something that can be said about photography.

The many-worlds interpretation has obvious similarities to multiple exposures. Exercise for the reader: What tools does the photographic vocabulary have to address relativistic time dilation?

-NT

blansky · Nov 11, 2013

ntenny said:
That's not actually a mind game, it's a pretty well established real phenomenon from special relativity. In a small way, it's a practical concern with GPS signals---their timing is affected by relativistic effects, not by a very large amount but enough to have practical effects on the position computation.

Quantum mechanics, not antimatter. That's the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum theory; it's probably not in itself actually a "theory", in the sense that it's not testable. Trying to think too hard about this stuff is the quick route from physics to epistemology; the latter is an interesting place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.

Well, the thermodynamic kind of entropy sort of argues that time *isn't* "just" a human construct, it's a property of physical systems; at least the "arrow" nature of time is. Relativity says time isn't as synchronized as it looks at the human scale, quantum mechanics says the far end of the arrow isn't as predictable as it looks at the human scale, but the basic concept of time (best defined, I think, as "time is what keeps everything from happening all at once") seems to hold together as a "real" thing, at least inasmuch as we can call anything "real".

I submit that this discussion isn't even off-topic, in that photography is fundamentally about (the illusion of) defying time by turning temporary light into permanent light. As such, anything that can be said about time should lead to something that can be said about photography.

The many-worlds interpretation has obvious similarities to multiple exposures. Exercise for the reader: What tools does the photographic vocabulary have to address relativistic time dilation?

-NT

Yeah, I said mind games because it's fun to think about it. Some of it is pretty proven theory on a theoretical level.

As for our sense or testability of time, we are of course dealing with our ability to reason and test these things and that in itself may be suspect.

A couple of things:

Our reality may that our universe is merely the dirt under the fingernails of a large being. I'm sure a flea or a microscopic being thinks that their reality is pretty important too.

The thing you mentioned about photography is what probably drew me to it. The ability to stop time. To freeze it and display it for others to see as well. That's a pretty amazing thing, all things considered.

As for time lapse, it's a mind fuck to take a time lapse shot of a scene and have someone walk through it and when you develop it, the person is not there.

So the analogy is we live about 80 years. In two hundred years, were we ever really here.

So the question is are we real? Are we really here? And where is here?

Black Dog · Nov 13, 2013

I always thought APUG was part of some other dimension...

ENTROPY

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