Multiple views and a hypothetical question

When I watch Messi score goals, it’s almost as though he has a plan view of the pitch at the same time as one at eye level. Such a view is impossible for us mortals, but would such ability help photographic composition? Perhaps I’m talking bullshit and/or referring to an out of body experience that is not possible.

cliveh said:

When I watch Messi score goals, it’s almost as though he has a plan view of the pitch at the same time as one at eye level. Such a view is impossible for us mortals, but would such ability help photographic composition? Perhaps I’m talking bullshit and/or referring to an out of body experience that is not possible.

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Interesting observation. Just my opinion, but I would think players of many sports may subconsciously create a "bird's eye" view of the field in addition to their primary view. I would suspect fighter pilots or soldiers in combat might do this as well. It may not be a complete view, but just a good sense of where important things are and their relationship.

For photography, the ability to do this might provide some insight in seeking a better vantage point or perspective.

If you can't see the finished print before you trip the shutter you either:

a) Have a lot to learn

or

b) Might as well give up now.

RobC said:

If you can't see the finished print before you trip the shutter you either:

a) Have a lot to learn

or

b) Might as well give up now.

Click to expand...

Then I have a lot to learn.

cliveh said:

Then I have a lot to learn.

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Next time before you trip the shutter you know what to do. Engage your minds eye....

You may find you don't trip the shutter so often but you may also find that when you do trip the shutter you get a far higher sucess rate. The real trick is being able to do it in black and white. That takes some time and effort or at least it does for me.

Is Messi a good photographer?
No.
Therefore, this is all BS.

NB23 said:

Is Messi a good photographer?
No.
Therefore, this is all BS.

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I think clive is asking if spatial awareness is relevant to photography. I don't think so, well at least I never thought about it that way. But I do think being able to visualise the finished result before you've taken it is very important. If it isn't then you're just hoping to get lucky.

If better spatial awareness helps the photographer discover more creative vantage points and perspectives, then that would improve a person's photography. Recently I made some photos at a famous geological landmark and saw so many people all making photos from the typical (and famous) angle and viewpoint. Being curious, I googled the images for that site and saw maybe 5% of the photos were from a nontraditional yet intriguing perspective.

cliveh said:

Then I have a lot to learn.

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I don't think so, Clive. I've been looking at your posted work for years. It would be difficult for anyone to argue with your compositional choices. "Spain in the Rain" is still one of my favorites, by any subscriber.

eddie said:

I don't think so, Clive. I've been looking at your posted work for years. It would be difficult for anyone to argue with your compositional choices. "Spain in the Rain" is still one of my favorites, by any subscriber.

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Thanks eddie.

cliveh said:

When I watch Messi score goals, it’s almost as though he has a plan view of the pitch at the same time as one at eye level. Such a view is impossible for us mortals, but would such ability help photographic composition? Perhaps I’m talking bullshit and/or referring to an out of body experience that is not possible.

Click to expand...

I don't know anything about the game you speak of, which I'm guessing is soccer but I do know a lot about hockey. Started when I was 5 and still play every other day today.

The ability to "see" the ice, is called hockey IQ, or hockey sense. All good players have it to some degree and the very best at it was Gretzky, and very few people would argue that. His ability was uncanny, because to the people who don't know the game very well, he was probably the best passer ever in the game. That was his skill, not scoring necessarily but laying in perfect passes to people in motion, who were being defended by equally good people at blocking/interception those passes.

And the ability to see the ice, is not birds eye, because birds eye would not help because in a lot of cases you are not just passing to a player or more importantly where he is going to be, you are actually passing through opposing players. Through their legs and through the gap between them and their sticks. On top of that birds eye would not allow for the speed of your player or the opposing player passing through the space.

That being said playing "systems" some which are universal to hockey, and some which are adapted to particular teams because of the makeup of their teams are practiced constantly, AND viewed/recorded from cameras in the ceilings of the rinks, to help illustrate the patterns/systems they wish to play. So the birds eye helps a little in that respect but basically like drawing on a chalkboard, to say, you go here and you go here. But it doesn't really help that much when the opposition players try to counteract that system.

If you've ever been to a hockey game and I guess any game and watch it from the stands, which are elevated, it looks like you have a lot of time and space to make plays, but if you go down to ice level and watch it's a whole different time and space. Far less time and far less space.

So my answer is, they, from practicing and playing so much, and having that hockey IQ, see, and process the game in their head to such a degree, that patterns emerge. I know he's going to be there, I see the gap and I'm passing to that gap, and he will arrive at the same time. The magic of the game is not the hitting, speed, although speed is great, it's the improvisation aspect of it, perhaps like jazz.

That also why nobody is great at it at first. It takes years.

I believe also that as we photograph more and more, and if we have a talent for it, these elements, likes the players on the ice, begin to form the same kind of compositional patterns in our work. And it too becomes improvisational with every scene we place in our viewfinder, but the patterns may already have been formed in our brains as we arrange the element in our scene. A birds eye view would not be the same thing at all merely because of the perspective.

I've worked with a few people whose sense of anticipation made them exceptional action photographers.

That includes sport, wedding and portrait photographers.

That anticipation includes spatial recognition abilities.

Anyone who has successfully photographed a bridal wedding bouquet toss will know what I mean.

Aye, blansky...

Me thinks you nailed it dead on, and with another sports analogy.

Spatial awareness to be sure. However, that I think is but one aspect of the broader situational awareness. The ability to know what's going on around you at all times. Where things are. What they are doing. Where they are going. Where they aren't going. And why. Not giving in to lazy thinking that nothing really matters. Knowing instead that everything matters. And paying attention to it all.

Practice situational awareness frequently enough and long enough and it becomes like muscle memory. Instinctive. Intuitive. The hockey player doesn't need to process the situation to anticipate the evolving pass. He simply feels it coming and flicks his stick at the right moment in the right direction.

The basketball player doesn't need to think about calculating angles to rebound missed shots. He just naturally slides to the exactly correct spot on the floor and the ball magically comes right to his hands. Again and again.

And that ne'er-do-well HCB fellow, he doesn't need to think through the composition of a rapidly changing dynamic scene. He just knows. His fingers just know. He simply feels it coming, and a moment later it's on the frame of film.

That was easy. Why can't everyone do that, he wonders? They all wonder?

When we are lying on our birth bed, our level of situational awareness is limited to about 12-inches in front of our eyes. Beyond that we are clueless. As we grow, that bubble of awareness grows outward. As grown adults we eventually know about the entire world. Even places we've never been. Even other worlds.

Did you know that on Earth the daytime sky is blue and the sunsets are red? Did you know that on Mars the daytime sky is red and the sunsets are blue? True 'dat...

But as we get older our situational awareness begins to contract. Things happening further away become less known, then eventually unknown. And unimportant to us. Then one day we are lying on our death bed, and our level of situational awareness has contracted back down to about 12-inches in front of our eyes. And a moment later even that goes dark.

Zen? Not really.

Just situational awareness intentionally polished to a high gloss, then put to good use while we still can.

Ken

NB23 said:

Is Messi a good photographer?
No.
Therefore, this is all BS.

Click to expand...

A perfect example of mistaken logic.

cliveh said:

Then I have a lot to learn.

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i don't think so cliveh
i think a lot of people can learn a lot from what you post, in words and in images.
there is a lot of "one way of photographing is better than another" in photography forums,
sometimes there really is no best way of doing everything ...
i have seen your street views now for a few years, and you seem to have a sense
of anticipation composition and everything else .. i wouldn't really worry about
the whole previsualization stuff because you are already visualizing ... and previsualizing
seems to be important more in landscape work to make drama than anything else ..
and i am sure if landscapists were put outside their comfort zone and had to pre visualize, and do
meter readings, fumble with filters &c they wouldn't be able to anticipate the street .. but put a street photographer
in the landscape i am guessing ( maybe wrongly ) but s/he will do just fine ..

Thanks John, much appreciated.

Just for you guys in the USA who have never heard of Messi -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=603JM1adqRA

cliveh said:

Just for you guys in the USA who have never heard of Messi -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=603JM1adqRA

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But I want to see his photos. From all the hype around spatial awareness and his skill I assume they must be superb. And I guess it means all sports people make superb photographers too and all good photographers are good at sport.

RobC said:

And I guess it means all sports people make superb photographers too and all good photographers are good at sport. :munch:

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Wrong message...

Ken

RobC said:

But I want to see his photos. From all the hype around spatial awareness and his skill I assume they must be superb. And I guess it means all sports people make superb photographers too and all good photographers are good at sport. :munch:

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That's completely illogical, no more than all good photographers are superb at sports.

Ken Nadvornick said:

When we are lying on our birth bed, our level of situational awareness is limited to about 12-inches in front of our eyes. Beyond that we are clueless. As we grow, that bubble of awareness grows outward....

But as we get older our situational awareness begins to contract. Things happening further away become less known, then eventually unknown. And unimportant to us. Then one day we are lying on our death bed, and our level of situational awareness has contracted back down to about 12-inches in front of our eyes. And a moment later even that goes dark.

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This is an interesting way of looking at the circle of life. I've never really looked at it in this way. It gave me food for thought. (And had me listening to Joni Mitchell's Circle Game )

In terms of creating art, though, does it mean we become more predictable, and less able to take chances, as we age? In other words, do you think we become enslaved by how we define ourselves, and our creations, after spending decades developing a personal style? Do those later in life 12-inches preclude creative growth? I ask because, after decades of developing a personal style (recognizable to both myself and people who buy my work), I find myself in a completely different place creatively. I'm not in the winter of my years... maybe early autumn (at 57). Since I started the new work, I've always thought about it being the product of serendipity, or a more open mind. Now, you have me thinking it could also be an unconscious attempt to ward off the "dark"... to strive to keep looking beyond those 12 inches. Thanks for that...

eddie said:

I'm not in the winter of my years... maybe early autumn (at 57).

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For an American male born in 1958, life expectancy from that point forward is 66 years, 31 weeks, 1 day, 9 hours, and 36 minutes.

Splitting the difference as a best estimate and thus assuming an age of 57.5 years old, it means that male will have already lived 86.3% of his 1958 life expectancy, with only a smallish 13.7%, or about 9.1 years, remaining. Now that's not to imply he has only those 9.1 years remaining for certain. That's just an average. It could actually be less.

The Lion in Winter...

Knowledge is control. Unknown is fear. When I say situational awareness what I am really saying is control replacing fear through the acquisition of knowledge regarding one's surroundings. Those on birth beds and death beds fear everything beyond 12-inches because it's unknown. The larger one's bubble of awareness—of knowledge—the less fearful of those surroundings one becomes, and the more risk one is capable of taking.

If one is a risk-taker in general, not just in art, that innate behavior will not decline with advancing age. What declines is that bubble of awareness in which one lives, and thus the absolute levels of the relative risks being taken. Older people with smaller bubbles still knowingly take what they believe are the same risks. But they are risks that younger people now see as laughably safe choices. And younger people with larger bubbles take risks that older people are horrified to even think about.

The same goes for the very young existing in equally small bubbles of awareness as the very old.

When my son was three years old I watched him stand in the driveway holding his mom's leg. He slowly worked up his courage, took a deep breath, let go, and walked about ten feet down that driveway and into the frightening unknown. That was it. At ten feet he crashed into his bubble, turned around, and ran as fast as he could back to the safety of mom's leg. He had just taken the biggest risk of his life.

It's kind of like the theory of relativity. The shortest distance between two points is always a straight line. Except that sometimes, and under certain conditions of spatial dilation, the definition of straight changes. And the definition of shortest distance has no other choice but than to change with it.

How does this affect one's art?

Just speculating, but perhaps such that the risks one sees oneself taking with only 13.7% remaining are just as significant, and scary, as they were when one still had 50% or 70% remaining. But maybe they no longer look as significant, or scary, to those outside that 13.7% (and still shrinking) bubble of awareness. One is still moving in a straight line for the shortest possible distance. But at only 13.7% remaining, the definition of straight and shortest have inexorably changed.

After my son scurried back I got into my car and drove 45 miles to work without giving that distance a second thought, smiling quaintly at my son's immense bravery in walking those ten feet, but also knowing something he didn't. That ten feet was really no big deal, and that when he eventually achieved the same adult speed as I was traveling at through life, his definition of straight and shortest, and my definition of straight and shortest, would become identical.

At least until I began to get old...



Ken

RobC said:

If you can't see the finished print before you trip the shutter you either:

a) Have a lot to learn

or

b) Might as well give up now.

Click to expand...

I agree but it's a learning curve to reach that point, some get there quicker than others and some never get there at all.

To answer Clive it's about spatial awareness, as you approach what you're photographing you are mentally watching how parts of a scene in front of you change with distance and angle, it's the same shooting people or still-life images. It's similar with any sport the top players will have the ability to be subconsciously aware of their position and others around them.

When I approach what I'm photographing I'll be watching how the possible shot will change depending on my positioning, this is mostly instinctive but it's not random. Having decided to make an image I'll decide what defines the edges of the frame. I may sometimes make other images from slightly different angles but invariably it's the first image that works best

Back in the mid 1980's I set my self a project photographing a small cast iron bridge over a period of a year in all seasons and weather conditions, at the same time I began using the Zone system and towards the end large format. I was a good exercise and I learnt a lot from it and the changes I made in my approach gave me confidence and freedom to shot in a way I wanted, it's also about achieving one's own personal style.

Perhaps what's most important is the pre-visualisation is in your own mind, the camera and it's position and subsequent exposure is the craft you use to achieve the final image/print.

Ian

eddie said:

This is an interesting way of looking at the circle of life. I've never really looked at it in this way. It gave me food for thought. (And had me listening to Joni Mitchell's Circle Game )

In terms of creating art, though, does it mean we become more predictable, and less able to take chances, as we age? In other words, do you think we become enslaved by how we define ourselves, and our creations, after spending decades developing a personal style? Do those later in life 12-inches preclude creative growth? I ask because, after decades of developing a personal style (recognizable to both myself and people who buy my work), I find myself in a completely different place creatively. I'm not in the winter of my years... maybe early autumn (at 57). Since I started the new work, I've always thought about it being the product of serendipity, or a more open mind. Now, you have me thinking it could also be an unconscious attempt to ward off the "dark"... to strive to keep looking beyond those 12 inches. Thanks for that...

Click to expand...

eddie

i leave the philosiphizing to the philosophers, and postulating to the mathmaticians and scientists and the pre-determination of my own death to my maker ..
... keep making new an inventive and interesting artwork. ( imho ) making photographs and artwork has nothing to do with warding off the dark .. but i guess some people might think it does ..
it is about serendipity, and everything else ... unless you are a fatalist and think everything is preconceived preset/predetermined and you are just going through the motions, if that's the case what's the point.
the teachings of theosophy teach that our souls are old and we have come back to learn lessons we need to grow and maybe reach enlightenment ( we'll never make it because there is too much to learn )
... its not just going through the motions ... and life / existing is more complicated than the simplifications philosophers or the metaphors scientists use to describe it...
with regards to predictable and taking chances with artwork .. i think the more you take chances the better artwork becomes, whether that is using a red filter to enhance clouds or making your own "film"
I'm not really sure how doing something completely different from what you have done before could ever be considered predictable. but then again i don't claim to be a philosopher or a scientist with all the answers.

YMMV

John- Ken's post made me think differently about certain aspects of creativity (always a good thing). I have always thought of it as linear, but now see the case can be made for it being somewhat circular. It certainly won't change what I'm doing, but it may give me better insight into why I am doing it, which is a positive thing. If I know more about my motivation, I may be able to do better work.