Where did Ansel?

[mikewhi]

Previsualization is not accurately defined that way. It is a visual image formed in the brain before your visual senses transmit signals to the brain to form an image of that seen by your eyes. It is literally an image in the brain, not an 'educated guess'. I'm sure you've experienced it, haven't you?

-Mike

 

[Bob F.]

OK... The act of imagining a future event is "visualization". The word "previsualization" is not a valid word: it is semantic nonsense. If it means anything, it means "before the point of visualisation" which makes no sense in the context of imagining the eventual print that is intended.

Just treat it as a technical term rather than an English one....

Cheers, Bob.

 

[dr bob]

OK... The act of imagining a future event is "visualization". The word "previsualization" is not a valid word: it is semantic nonsense. If it means anything, it means "before the point of visualisation" which makes no sense in the context of imagining the eventual print that is intended.

Just treat it as a technical term rather than an English one....

Cheers, Bob.

Maybe it was the need for one-upsmanship as it existed when “previsualization” was first coined. In Gov.(military) work, the projects with the most syllables, wins! E.g., “fuel cells” – twollable; “su-per-con-duc-tiv-I-ty”, seven syllables! Guess who won?

 

[mikewhi]

OK... The act of imagining a future event is "visualization". The word "previsualization" is not a valid word: it is semantic nonsense. If it means anything, it means "before the point of visualisation" which makes no sense in the context of imagining the eventual print that is intended.

Just treat it as a technical term rather than an English one....

Cheers, Bob.

The act of 'seeing' a future event is not 'visualization', it is 'prevision' as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary. And since 'prevision' is the root of 'previsualization', then 'previsualizaiton' is seeing a future event. In this application, 'previsualization' is the act of seeing a finished print before it is made.

Previsualization is an English term for the simple fact that it's in the OED. And since it existed at least 400 years ago, AA and Minor White certainly did not invent it. Based on White's personal philosophy and the connection of 'prevision' with the spiritual\supernatural I would certainly suspect that White brought the term into photography, but that's just a guess. EW, in his daybooks, most certainly describes the process of 'prevision' in that he saw in his mind a print complete and finished before he tripped the shutter, but he did not coin this particular phrase. I would suspect that White did, just to put a term to something that he and other past photographers had experienced for years.

-Mike
"Right Brain"

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Last time I read a revised edition of The Negative (from the '60s), Adams mentions that he was embarrassed by the redundancy of the 'previsualization' term, after someone pointed it to him.

It's a fathomable error, considering that seeing a finished picture could be an instance of 'visualization', whereas imagining that picture is a pre-visualization. However I think the term 'visualization' is meant to refer to the "mind's eye" rather than the actual eye, so you have {vision; visualization} in order of abstraction, not {visualization; previsualization}

 

[Bob F.]

Oh gawd... The fact that a word is in the OED, simply reflects that the word is in common usage. As "previsualization" is in common use, you would expect it to be in the OED. QED.

Visualisation is the verb form of "visualize" and it can mean imagining a future event or object etc. To visualize something is to create a mental image of it. Visualize is one of several synonyms for prevision depending on context (prescience, foresight, prediction, prospicience etc). I do not know the verb form of prevision, but I will be very surprised to find it is previsualize as that would cause problems, as previously related, with "visualize". Of course, the fact that it may not make semantic sense, does not mean it has not been in general use for centuries: this is English after all....

Cheers, Bob.

 

[Aggie]

has any one ever thought of doing the photography version of Jeopardy? I'll take Photography Semantics for 100, Alex.

 

[mikewhi]

Oh gawd... The fact that a word is in the OED, simply reflects that the word is in common usage. As "previsualization" is in common use, you would expect it to be in the OED. QED.

Incorrect. The OED does not contain only words in common uage. It contains many archaic words. I cannot find any dictionary that lists "previsualization" as a word - can anyone? I've only checked OED and Meriam-Webster. I suspect the word is one that is made up and is not yet accepted into common usage and codified in a dictionary.

Visualisation is the verb form of "visualize" and it can mean imagining a future event or object etc. To visualize something is to create a mental image of it. Visualize is one of several synonyms for prevision depending on context (prescience, foresight, prediction, prospicience etc).

Also incorrect. Visualize cannot mean visualizing a future event. You are mixing the definitions of visualization and prevision. To visualize is defined as "To form a mental vision, image or picture of something not visible or present to the sight, or of an abstraction; to make visible to the mind or the imagination".

Prevision is defined as "The action or faculty of forseeing; knowledge of or insight into the future; foresight, foreknowledge."

Thus, 'visualize' and 'prevision' are not the same thing and cannot be synonyms. The distinction between the two is 'seeing' future images. To 'visualize' you see things in the present or past that are not currently within sight. It can also be seeing a mental image of something that is abstract and cannot exist in any time. To 'prevision' involves seeing something in the future - you cannot 'prevision' something in the past or that exists but is not currently in sight. The clear distinction is that 'prevision' involves 'future' events.

It is pretty clear why 'prevision' was chosen as the root of 'previsualization', then and not 'visualize'. It means to see, in the present, in one's mind, a future finished print not yet realized but one that will be when the photographic process is completed.

In contract, one can visualize any image in one's mind that will or cannot become reality in the future. I have been out with photogapher's who have loooked at some scene and when I asked them what the saw, they may say 'I see a fantasy land'. Well, they may be able to visualize that but it is not prevision. It is pure fantasy, an image of something not present, not in the past and will come come forth in the future. Thus, it is 'visualization'.

I do not know the verb form of prevision

The verb form of prevision is: prevision. As you know, some words can be more than one part of speech.

 

[Bob F.]

OK, so the OED contains words that used to be in common usage as well as ones that are: that's just nit-picking.

Earlier you wrote that "Previsualization is an English term for the simple fact that it's in the OED. And since it existed at least 400 years ago, AA and Minor White certainly did not invent it" but, now you say you can't find it in any dictionary. I'm getting even more confused than usual... I could not find it in any online dictionary either but do not have access to the OED here so was unable to read your observation for myself: did you mean "prevision" rather than "previsualisation" is over 400 years old & in the OED?.

"To form a mental vision, image or picture of something not visible or present to the sight, or of an abstraction; to make visible to the mind or the imagination"

Why does this definition of visualize preclude the visualization of something yet to be created? I think you are placing artificial restrictions on the breadth of the definition. At no point does it specify that the object visualized must currently exist.

From Websters: "Visualize \Vis"u*al*ize\, v. t. To make visual, or visible; to see in fancy: also, to see or form a mental image of "

Similarly to the other definition, it allows for "fancy" ("imagination" in the previous definition) - i.e. something that does not exist, not necessarily something that cannot or will not exist. In fact, Websters definition of prevision ("Foresight; foreknowledge; prescience) is arguably further away from the accepted meaning of "previsualize" than Webster's definition of "visualize"...

No one said they mean the same thing: context is all.

("synonym n : two words that can be interchanged in a context are said to be synonymous relative to that context").

Clearly a word may have the same meaning as another in one context but not another. I could prevision the aftermath of a car crash. I can also visualize the aftermath of a car crash (the "fancy" or "imagination" is the get-out clause here). However, I cannot prevision Narnia but I could visualize it. I'll happily concede that prevision is a more precise word for what is generally meant by previsualize as it is more specific in meaning, but will hold that visualize can, in this context, be considered synonymous.

I would also suggest that Minor White (or whoever) did not know of the existence of "prevision" as if he did, he could simply have used "prevision" and not gone to the trouble of adding "pre" to visualize which, to return to the original point of my post, makes no real sense as a word... He likely would have coined "previsioning" or "previsionize" (yuk) if anything. Of course, we will never know for sure one way or 'tother.

Ah - forgot to mention: everyone who does not use "previsualize" in this context uses "visualise" instead (inc St. Ansel himself in his books). As a word's meaning is defined by it's widespread usage then at this stage of the game, "visualize" is synonymous with "previsualize" (in this context) ...


Cheers, Bob.

 

[mikewhi]

OK, so the OED contains words that used to be in common usage as well as ones that are: that's just nit-picking.

It's not nit-picking. I'm trying to establish the OED as a source\proof text. You tried to limit it's scope\aplicability incorrectly.

Earlier you wrote that "Previsualization is an English term for the simple fact that it's in the OED. And since it existed at least 400 years ago, AA and Minor White certainly did not invent it" but, now you say you can't find it in any dictionary. I'm getting even more confused than usual... I could not find it in any online dictionary either but do not have access to the OED here so was unable to read your observation for myself: did you mean "prevision" rather than "previsualisation" is over 400 years old & in the OED?.

Here is a copy\paste of what I originally wrote (please note 'prevision'). I fI subsequently substituted 'previsualization', that was an error:

"Also, the root of this word, 'prevision' might have first occured in english in the 14th century with direct references in the 1600's and onward. This according to the Oxford Dictionary Of The English Language, not my personal recollection."

"To form a mental vision, image or picture of something not visible or present to the sight, or of an abstraction; to make visible to the mind or the imagination"

Why does this definition of visualize preclude the visualization of something yet to be created? I think you are placing artificial restrictions on the breadth of the definition. At no point does it specify that the object visualized must currently exist.

Simple. Because if you want to describe a visualization of something in the future, you would use the word 'prevision' or one of it's true synonyms. It's like if you wanted to say 'apple' you would say 'apple' and not 'orange'. I believe in using the proper words and I use the dictionary as the source\proof text - not common usage. If that were the reference, there would be symantic anarchy, my friend, and you know what leads to. The definition of 'visualize' makes no reference to future images but prevision clearly does. While it is possible to visualize images and say they are future events (like fantasizing what the future would be like), it is not prevision (or 'previsualization') because there is no intent or expectation that it will come to pass. There is a clear distinction between the two.

Look at your own quote, where you literally spell out the difference:

From Websters: "Visualize \Vis"u*al*ize\, v. t. To make visual, or visible; to see in fancy: also, to see or form a mental image of " [/QUOTE]

Similarly to the other definition, it allows for "fancy" ("imagination" in the previous definition) - i.e. something that does not exist, not necessarily something that cannot or will not exist. In fact, Websters definition of prevision ("Foresight; foreknowledge; prescience) is arguably further away from the accepted meaning of "previsualize" than Webster's definition of "visualize"...

The definition does not allow for 'fancy', it requires it. If it is 'fancy' then it is visualization. If it is foresight, it is 'prevision'. Totally different things. AA did not conjure a 'fanciful' image in his head and neither do I. It is a 'foresight' of an image we will make after the printing is done.

No one said they mean the same thing: context is all.

("synonym n : two words that can be interchanged in a context are said to be synonymous relative to that context").....<snip>

No. If they don't mean the same thing, they cannot be synonyms - if they are used as synonyms in common usage then the ones doing that are wrong and need to read the dictionary. 'Context' cannot re-define words. The correct words need to be used in the correct context or valid discussions cannot exist - that's why semantics are so important.

I would also suggest that Minor White (or whoever) did not know of the existence of "prevision"...

Who knows. He was a smart guy and he may have heard of the dictionary and actually researched it. He may well have said exactly what he meant.
But I do know that EW described the exact process in his daybooks and was tlking about prevision, not visualization.[/QUOTE]

Ah - forgot to mention: everyone who does not use "previsualize" in this context uses "visualise" instead (inc St. Ansel himself in his books). As a word's meaning is defined by it's widespread usage then at this stage of the game, "visualize" is synonymous with "previsualize" (in this context) ...

I guess you speak for all English speaking people? For me, I prefer to use the words correctly - each has it's own specific meaning. BTW, the definition of a word is not decided until it's codified. People can make up whatever words they want and mis-use words and one day that may be recognized in a dictionary - certainly they are living documents, but once codified the definitions are pretty clear - certainly they are for these 2 words which have been around for hundreds of years. I see no need to re-define and mis-use them. Their meanings and distinctions are clear.

-Mike

Cheers, Bob.[/QUOTE]

 

[Bob F.]

Here is a copy\paste of what I originally wrote (please note 'prevision'). I fI subsequently substituted 'previsualization', that was an error:

Fair enough - as I thought, you accidently used "previsualize" instead of "prevision".

Look at your own quote, where you literally spell out the difference:

From Websters: "Visualize \Vis"u*al*ize\, v. t. To make visual, or visible; to see in fancy: also, to see or form a mental image of "

The definition does not allow for 'fancy', it requires it. If it is 'fancy' then it is visualization. If it is foresight, it is 'prevision'. Totally different things. AA did not conjure a 'fanciful' image in his head and neither do I. It is a 'foresight' of an image we will make after the printing is done.

Now you are defining "fancy" in too limited a way. Webster's again: "An image or representation of anything formed in the mind; conception; thought; idea; conceit."

No. If they don't mean the same thing, they cannot be synonyms - if they are used as synonyms in common usage then the ones doing that are wrong and need to read the dictionary. 'Context' cannot re-define words. The correct words need to be used in the correct context or valid discussions cannot exist - that's why semantics are so important.

Of course context defines words! "I've had a hard day - I'm very blue at the moment" does not mean I have gone mad with a paint brush and a bucket of wode...

I guess you speak for all English speaking people? For me, I prefer to use the words correctly - each has it's own specific meaning. BTW, the definition of a word is not decided until it's codified. People can make up whatever words they want and mis-use words and one day that may be recognized in a dictionary - certainly they are living documents, but once codified the definitions are pretty clear - certainly they are for these 2 words which have been around for hundreds of years. I see no need to re-define and mis-use them. Their meanings and distinctions are clear.

Of course I do not speak for all English speaking people! Of course I do not mean "everyone" in a literal sense - it is simply a device to emphasize the "overwhelming majority of". It is simply my observation that I do not recall ever having seen, heard or read anyone use any other words when describing how they see a final print turning out. Actually, not quite true - I have seen a hyphen inserted: "pre-visualize" - but that's a whole new can of worms...

Mike, we are obviously not going to agree on this so to avoid constant repetition, to protect driving anyone who reads this thread from terminal boredom (of course, I do not mean that they will literally die - just to be clear...) I think you should have your final say and we can agree to let this drop at that point.


Cheers, Bob.

 

[Dave Wooten]

This has gotten interesting but,

Where did Ansel come up with the concept of visualization?

 

[Paul Baker]

Is it semantics or etymology?

I think some of the problem here is that the word prevision has nothing to do with the disscussion at all. The word that has not been mentioned, as far as I can tell, is envision. Envision is a synonym of visualize. I think, then, that the word envisualize is what we should be saying instead of previsualize, because like many have said, it doesn't make a darn bit of sense. I hope this doesn't just stir the coals.

Paul

 

[Bob F.]

I think some of the problem here is that the word prevision has nothing to do with the disscussion at all. The word that has not been mentioned, as far as I can tell, is envision. Envision is a synonym of visualize. I think, then, that the word envisualize is what we should be saying instead of previsualize, because like many have said, it doesn't make a darn bit of sense. I hope this doesn't just stir the coals.

Paul

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNGGGGG!!!!

.

 

[c6h6o3]

This has gotten interesting but,
Where did Ansel come up with the concept of visualization?

Probably a mutated extension of Stieglitz's concept of 'equivalents'. The print as simulacrum of what the photographer saw and felt at the time. He sees, or 'visualizes' it, if you will, in his mind's eye before making the exposure.

Pure baloney, in my always humble and unbiased opinion. The visualization takes place on the ground glass and only on the ground glass. What caught your eye and prompted you to set up the camera has nothing to do with the act of photographing once you're involved in finding the image on the ground glass or viewfinder.

 

[mikewhi]

Probably a mutated extension of Stieglitz's concept of 'equivalents'. The print as simulacrum of what the photographer saw and felt at the time. He sees, or 'visualizes' it, if you will, in his mind's eye before making the exposure.

Pure baloney, in my always humble and unbiased opinion. The visualization takes place on the ground glass and only on the ground glass. What caught your eye and prompted you to set up the camera has nothing to do with the act of photographing once you're involved in finding the image on the ground glass or viewfinder.

I still don't see how people don't get what White and AA and EW meant when they spoke of prevision. It's pretty simple, no mistery, a real phenomenon. It simply means looking on the groundglass and seeing in one's mind's eye the finished print. This is really common enough among photographers to not be such a mistery. I do know that the majority of photographers don't experience it, but just because YOU don't does not mean it is nonsense.

If others reading the thread experience this (or even if you don't but DO understand the concept) please jump in so I can get some reassurance of the average IQ level on APUG.

-Mike

 

[mikewhi]

Fair enough - as I thought, you accidently used "previsualize" instead of "prevision".

Now you are defining "fancy" in too limited a way. Webster's again: "An image or representation of anything formed in the mind; conception; thought; idea; conceit."

Of course context defines words! "I've had a hard day - I'm very blue at the moment" does not mean I have gone mad with a paint brush and a bucket of wode...


Of course I do not speak for all English speaking people! Of course I do not mean "everyone" in a literal sense - it is simply a device to emphasize the "overwhelming majority of". It is simply my observation that I do not recall ever having seen, heard or read anyone use any other words when describing how they see a final print turning out. Actually, not quite true - I have seen a hyphen inserted: "pre-visualize" - but that's a whole new can of worms...

Mike, we are obviously not going to agree on this so to avoid constant repetition, to protect driving anyone who reads this thread from terminal boredom (of course, I do not mean that they will literally die - just to be clear...) I think you should have your final say and we can agree to let this drop at that point.


Cheers, Bob.

Actually, I enjoy(ed) the conversation. I'll let it go and I don't need the last word. Thanks for joining in the discussion and I appreciate people who have the will to stand up for what they think. At least you didn't cop out and give some middle-of-the road compromise! Stick to your guns, man!

Now, what do we do with the guy who thinks 'equivalence' is the same as 'previsualize'? And 'equivalence'??? Where's my OED when I need it!

-Mike

 

[Bob F.]

Actually, I enjoy(ed) the conversation. I'll let it go and I don't need the last word. Thanks for joining in the discussion and I appreciate people who have the will to stand up for what they think. At least you didn't cop out and give some middle-of-the road compromise! Stick to your guns, man!

Now, what do we do with the guy who thinks 'equivalence' is the same as 'previsualize'? And 'equivalence'??? Where's my OED when I need it!

-Mike

Do not go there, just do NOT go there...

Bob.

 

[Paul Baker]

I think there are two different ideas going on here if I am correct. There's the person who wakes up one morning and says "Wow! I just had the most amazing idea for a photograph. It had a mountain on one side and some trees in the front... I'd better grab the Sinar and some Tri-X, cause I have some driving to do!" Then there's the person who's already set up with the mountains and the trees and says, "Hey, this is looking pretty good. I think this would look good as a photograph. If I move over there and use the 90mm SA..." You see? The first guy previsioned it (I can verb it, can't I?) and the second guy visualized it. I would think that a painter (the kind that uses small brushes and expensive paint not the guy with the roller) is one who previsions things and a photographer is one who visualizes things. Maybe I'm just tangling it all up again... What I think is kind of strange is that the more I look at something and say, "would I want to make a print of that?" the less I take pictures!

 

[Dave Wooten]

I think you, c6h603, and Tonopah Jim,

have come closest to the answer, what if anything can we really attribute to Ansel, but rather a continuum of concepts prevelant in some circles even during the "hey day" of pictorialism.
Who first showed the splendors of Yosemite territory.......
"Mid-nineteenth century wet-plate photographers, C.L. Weed, Carleton Watkins, and Eadwaeard Muybridge, made the ardous journey into what was then unsurveyed territory." Watkins especially, several expeditions with mammoth plate and stereo cameras.


"Adams himself recognized those precedents, claiming allegiance to them as a way of rejecting his immediate pictoralist inheritance."

"Straight" photography was being discussed as early a 1901 by Charles Caffin-part of Stieglitz's early circle.

"Adam's early silver prints, (which he called "Parmelian prints") have a small, self-consciously arty look to them; it was only in 1930, the year Paul Strand showed Adams his photographs, that Adam's pictures began to acquire the dramatic contrasts and expansive scale of his mature work. Throughout the 1930's and the 1940's he worked in close proximity to Weston, whose more abstractionist dramatic style no doubt, strengthened Adam's commitment to purist practice."

" Pre-visualizing"

"A similar desire for purity may lie behind his almost fetishistic concentration on craft, which in the 1930's led him to develop a systematic procedure for "pre-visualizing" the final printed image while the exposure was being made. Called the Zone System, it enabled Adams to adjust his exposure and development times to produce negatives ideally suited for enlargement--and, most important for Adams, negatives that contained within them the germ of his original "vision" of the subject."

*"Adams was not the first photographer to place a high value on visualizing the final image in advance,any more than he was the first to swear allegiance to sharply focused and finely detailed prints (his friend Edward Weston, for one, preceded him on both counts), but he was the first to combine the science on sensitometry with the aesthetic of the expressive photograph.........."

"Adams drew upon the already existing aesthetic of the Equivalent, as conceived by Alfred Stieglitz. Stieglitz held that photographs, besides being documents of what they are of, are expressions of something else-that something else being the vision or feeling of the photographer."

The true question is, what then is the meaning of Adam's vision of the natural world--or "for that matter, any clue as to what his unmatched technical brilliance allowed him to express."

"Throughout his life Adam's refused to speak about the meaning of his pictures--preferring, presumably, to let them speak for themselves. But if Adam's pictures are expressive, as he made clear he intended them to be, the criticism of modernist photography has yet to describe what they are expressive of.

If they are equivalents of the artist's deepest feelings, what are those feelings? As the photographer Robert Adams has written in regard to Minor White's imagery, "Sooner or later, one has to ask of all pictures what kind of life they promote."

"Today these efforts at getting to Adam's importance seem not unlike the kind of evasions ambivalent critics sometimes undertake..... One can search all the panegyrical commentary on the photographer's work and not find a single description of the meaning of Adam's vision of the natural world--or for that matter, any clue as to what his unmatched technical brilliance allowed him to express."

"The silence, coupled with the absence of any body of criticism that takes issue with the work, is what has left Adam's place in the art of this century suprisingly unsettled."

A book recommended on Apug forum several months ago in another post on what good books on photography one should read contains the above quotes.

The book, Crisis of the Real-Writings on photography since 1974 by Andy Grunberg" (see pages 34 and 35)

C6h6o3, I actually agree with your humble and unbiased pure baloney opinion and also with Tonopah Jim's B.S. opinion. Minor also got into the "equivalents" lets not go there.

As always thanks to all apugers, and Oh what fun.

Dave in Vegas

 

[Dave Wooten]

Oh I myself almost forgot the original question, it was,

Any comment out there on where Ansel came up with the concept of Pre-visualization?

I don't think he did. He can be accredited with using the "science of sensitometry with the aesthetic of the expressive photograph." He was not the first photographer to place a high value on visualizing the final image in advance.... Andy Grundberg-New York Times.

 

[mikewhi]

I think there are two different ideas going on here if I am correct. There's the person who wakes up one morning and says "Wow! I just had the most amazing idea for a photograph. It had a mountain on one side and some trees in the front... I'd better grab the Sinar and some Tri-X, cause I have some driving to do!" Then there's the person who's already set up with the mountains and the trees and says, "Hey, this is looking pretty good. I think this would look good as a photograph. If I move over there and use the 90mm SA..." You see? The first guy previsioned it (I can verb it, can't I?) and the second guy visualized it. <snip>

The first example you give is actually 'visualization', not prevision. The second, reading what you wrote, is neither visaualized or previsioned.

In the first instance, it is not prevision because it is not a foreknowing or foreseeing of something to come. Driving around in your car looking for something to match what you saw in your head is not prevision. What this person did was to visualize a fanciful image. It was conjured up out his\her imagination, which is the definition of visualization. They may or may not be able to find something that looks like it, but that would be chance.

In the second example, you never state that the photographer 'saw' anything in his\her mind. Certainly, the photographer did not see a finished print in his\her mind as they were composing the image - at least that part isn't described. If you had extened your second story to say: "Then the photographer looked on the groundglass and as he\she looked at the projected image, he\she could see it in thier minds' eye as a finished b&w imaged complete in every detail and tone". That would have been prevision and would accurately describe what AA or White mean by 'previsualization'.

It must be stressed that dreaming up images that don't exist is not prevision. It would more accurately describe the work of Bruce Barnbaum<g>.

-Mike

 

[c6h6o3]

I still don't see how people don't get what White and AA and EW meant when they spoke of prevision. It's pretty simple, no mistery, a real phenomenon.

Weston, yes. I know what he meant and that's the way I photograph.

But AA and White were different. They talked about 'previsualizing' the print with their eyes, just looking at the scene through a framing card or viewing filter. Then they would decide what lens to use and set up the camera to try and capture what they had envisioned in their mind's eye. And I believe you can't do it. If you can, more power to ya.

 

[clay]

One can practice extensively, and eventually hit the target consistently with the arrow. Or one can just take a bucket of paint and paint the target around the place where the arrow lands.

 

[mikewhi]

Weston, yes. I know what he meant and that's the way I photograph.

But AA and White were different. They talked about 'previsualizing' the print with their eyes, just looking at the scene through a framing card or viewing filter. Then they would decide what lens to use and set up the camera to try and capture what they had envisioned in their mind's eye. And I believe you can't do it. If you can, more power to ya.

I'm not sure of the difference between how you understand what EW did and how you understand how AA and MW worked. Can you describe the differences? I think of them as the same mental proces of 'prevision'. Are you saying that EW saw the image on the gg first and then imaged in his mind and that AA and MW previsioned first and then went thru setting up the camera to make he image they saw in their minds? Is the only difference seeing on the gg first?

Thanks.

-Mike