Capturing the moment or thinking you are?

<p>Not to me. You'd have to flesh out what you mean by a feeling as a representation. </p>

<p>are you interested in photography or philosophy?</p>

<p>I'll go back to original question.</p>

<p>First, it is a long time since the concept of <em>time </em>has been in the scope of philosophy. These days time is firmly in the hands of physics.</p>

<p>In a purely practical sense, appropriate for this discussion, time is just part of tools in kinematics (part of physics that deals with motion) to describe events. The other part of the tools is of course space. Similarily like nothing can be positioned in a point, also nothing can happen in a moment. Objects occupy a region of space and events happen in time intervals.</p>

<p>In physics the concepts of dividing space into points and time into points (i.e. moments) have been abandoned long time ago. Points have dimension zero and do not have the same measure as three dimensional space, one dimensional time, or if you like, four dimensional spacetime. You can not construct one-, two-, three- etc. dimensional manifolds from zero dimensional points. In this sense discussing points of space or moments of time is physically wrong. For example, Zeno paradox of Achilles and turtle originates from wrong concept that space is divided into points and time into moments. If you translate Zeno's story into modern language of physics, describing space as dividable into regions and time dividable into intervals, paradoxes do not emerge.</p>

<p>In the view of physics the photography in the simplest form would be mapping by lens of three dimensional scene into two dimensional record, using light emited or reflected in the scene and integrated for a time interval, defined by shutter speed.</p>

<p>The mapping has two interesting features: it reduces space and time dimension by one. Consequence: events and scene can not be unambiguously reconstructed from a photo.</p>

<p>Therefore photo <em>is not</em> a copy of objects photographed, because some information has been lost during the process. Consequence: illusions by photography are possible or even unavoidable, even if Photoshop is not applied (think of pole emerging from aunt's head).</p>

<p>Did I manage to complicate things? :-))</p>

<p>

<p > “Did I manage to complicate things? :-))”</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Holy galloping codfish, I’m so confused; just have to think about applying some simple common sense to all this special stuff...</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Let’s have a little think.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Mathematics , is really about imagination. The very basic stuff is based on a simple religious concept ... the word or numerical expression zero. A simple concept to explain a place between Alpha and Omega. So, let us move on to greater understanding, the understandings that the imagination seeks, and the mathematics finds. </p>

<p >The photographers travels to the same place but on a different path. </p>

<p > </p>

<p >Both revealing truths...</p>

<p > </p>

</p>

<p > </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Not to me. You'd have to flesh out what you mean by a feeling as a representation.<br>

 </p>

</blockquote>

<p>Fred<br>

 <br>

If for example I look to a photograph of a father and a son and it makes me remind my childhood an all the love I feel about my own father, I understand I can say this photo is a kind of a representation of love, more than just a ordinary scene.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Is a photograph a copy of a real subject or is it a copy of a representation?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>There's something odd and even wasteful in posing a question this way to photographers. A photographic apparatus detects and records radiation it collects. Optical devices use lenses to collect light, radio devices use large dish-like antennas, & etc. This radiation is thought to contain information about the objects that originate or reflect it. Devices have been built to collect information from objects arriving in many wave lengths both visible and invisible to human beings.</p>

<p>The question posed here appears to be whether or not radiation arriving in a camera provides the operator enough information so that later on when he sees the result he is willing to believe that it describes an actual object. I wish someone could have been clear enough to write, "Is the subject I see in my photo really there?" There. I did it myself. This leads to a more interesting exploration of the kinds of visual clues reasonable, rational people use to tell truth from fiction.</p>

<p>Telling truth from fiction lies at the heart of the interesting version of the OP's question. But he could be seriously confused about what a photographer would say informs his work. He seems to be more interested in ancient philosophical discussions of objects as shadows vs. objects as real things: What does the mind make of the world around it? How does the mind know the world around it? Although there is always someone willing to rise to the bait, it seems to me that a discussion like this one is more suitable for a typical Philosophy class than it would be for a Photography course. It should be in the 'Off Topic" forum on PN instead of this one.</p>

<p>So now I propose: "<strong>Moderator, please move this thread to the Off Topic Forum</strong>."</p>

<p>Albert, most of the participants in this thread have had no trouble relating the original post to photography. You're quite welcome to add your perspective to the discussion, but it's not up to you to decide how other people can approach the question.</p>

<p>Albert Richardson:<br>

<em>"Telling truth from fiction lies at the heart of the interesting version of the OP's question. But he could be seriously confused about what a photographer would say informs his work."</em><br>

Who is this "a photographer"?<br>

If A Nunes was talking about <strong>me</strong> , you would be right. If talking about <strong>you</strong> , perhaps (I can't know, but from what you say: probably) you would be right. But A Nunes is talking about what informs the work of A Nunes, and A Nunes is a photographer.<br>

One of the values of this forum is that it allows out into clearsight the immense diversity of what informs different photographers' work.<br>

<em>"...a discussion like this one is more suitable for a typical Philosophy class than it would be for a Photography course."</em><br>

(1) This isn't a photography course (or any other sort of course). It's a philosophy of photography (both words) discussion forum. A Nunes is talking about his philosophy of photography; others are talkng about their different philosophies of photography.<br>

(2) Photography courses come in many kinds. On some of them this would be inappropriate; on others valuable. I would personally be very glad to hear my students arguing this way.<br>

<em>"Moderator, please move this thread to the Off Topic Forum."</em><br>

That would, in my opinion, be a very great pity.<br>

This post has generated a tremendous amount of discussion, almost all of it related to photography.<br>

I personally disagree with most of what has been said, but that's <strong>not a bad thing</strong> . So long as it remains civil (which, again, it has) disagreement is vital to progress.</p>

<p>I wish there was a Philosophy of Photocopying forum, then we could have an equally amusing debate on the matter of "Is a photocopy a copy of a real subject or is it a copy of a representation?"... :) And yes, 99.999% of people would be quietly chuckling over a beverage of their choice at all the pointless, confused codswallop being bandied around in the name of "philosophy"... As usual.</p>

<p>Reality is what it is (no matter how our teeny human brains choose to describe it) and our perceptions of it are what they are. Ooooh, how exciting... :)</p>

<p>"If for example I look to a photograph of a father and a son and it makes me remind my childhood an all the love I feel about my own father, I understand I can say this photo is a kind of a representation of love, more than just a ordinary scene."</p>

<p>Alexandre--</p>

<p>I understand your example. The great thing about a photograph is that there could be a case where you assume they are father and son and, in fact, they turn out to be uncle and nephew at the brother/father's funeral, not primarily experiencing love but experiencing sorrow. Your emotional reaction remains a genuine one to what you've seen. But has a father-son love been represented? And, if not, how much does that matter? That's a case of mistaken identity but shows that the associative powers of a photograph can go beyond the reality of the moment of exposure, one of the joys of making that exposure.</p>

<p>Even if we remove the possibility of mistaken interpretations in your example, "representation" implies a literal translation of the love of father and son. On a recent photo of mine, a friend wrote that he found it evocative but couldn't put his finger on what it evoked. I've had that sort of experience with photographs. I think there's something beyond representation going on there. Listening to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, I may sense fate knocking at the door, yet Beethoven may very well have heard a child bang on the table in four successive beats and been moved by that to crank out a tune. Though I may experience, even hear, fate, I don't think it would be fair to say that fate has been represented. A subject of a portrait and I, together, may come upon a certain pose that works. That pose may simply feel right at the moment, very often the more significant aspect of the process of making a photograph than the actual meaning of what is being done. Viewers may see elements of dance in that pose, may interpret it as an ominous pose or a sweet pose, etc. I may simply have responded to the visual ease of the pose or the intensity of it, I may have liked how a shadow got created by the arms and legs. The viewer is, of course, legitimately seeing and feeling what he is seeing and feeling. But, in this case, has dance or any of what the viewer interprets been represented? I think there is not <em>necessarily</em>, though there may often be, such a direct translation from photographer through photograph to viewer as the word "representation" suggests. Many photographs are effective because they are illusions, semblances rather than representations. The <em>expressiveness</em> of a certain type of photograph may be more significant than its representational meaning.</p>

<p>Albert- <br>

Chill out. You have a point, but it is definitely photography <i>and </i>philosophy- hence the forum name. <br>

Photography is a "time" art. However we as humans are really the only ones who understand it. When all is said and done it will come down to the technical, not the philisophical- therefore we are really just capturing a rendering of something via a light sensitive medium. I could go on with my philisophical approach, but it has no bearing on the hugely pluralistic nature of life.</p>

<p>"it will come down to the technical, not the philisophical"</p>

<p>one of the reasons there are so many absolutely dull but pretty and well-exposed photographs.</p>

<p>YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! well, one of the reasons. Thank god for "thinking outside the box" though:)</p>

<p>No harm no foul. Not for me anyway.</p>

<p>Generally when I have heard discussions of a person's philosophy of his craft the objective was to find out his thoughts about his practice. There would be an interest in his views on the subject and, in particular, his approach and the goals for his own work. This being an effort to ask a person in a positive way what he is thinking when he practices his craft. If he replies with a non sequitur about Aristotle of Immanuel Kant then we know things have gone wrong and we start over. - Wrong kind of Philosophy.</p>

<p>This sort of thing might be the meaning of a title like "The Philosophy of Photography." I suppose it could also cover the ground you might expect in a Survey of Photography or a History of Photography program emphasizing actual perspectives associated with notable photographers. You can see room to explore the influence of other disciplines in photography inasmuch as one might find examples of them.</p>

<p>So it is Photography <em>and</em> Philosophy, but not necessarily Philosophy as a formal independent discipline of the sort one usually means when he calls someone a "Student of Philosophy." This would be helpful in a place devoted to Photography when the Philosopher has addressed himself to topics people who practice photography find to be interesting and useful. Many people have writings in the field on a host of issues and concerns Philosophers have including the nature and experience of reality vis-a-vis human beings. But I think that this sort of thing lies beyond the purpose of opening the topic in the first place, which seems to have been to ask where the stuff in front of the OP's camera is with respect to the camera itself. If it moved, then how can it be there? - Useful or not?</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"<em>what we will capture is NOT a single moment, it is actually a kind of a short movie or the sequence of infinite moments that our eyes and thoughts cannot reach!</em> "</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>What we capture is NOT a short movie either. The short movie analogy is still infinitely inaccurate because each frame of a movie is a static image containing infinite moments. Actually, that's true for all sight due to the limits of the human visual processing system. I guess that just further supports the second part of your statement, that our eyes and thoughts cannot reach the reality.</p>

<p>Others have tackled the philosophical part of the discussion very well. I just wanted to point out this one issue I noticed with the premise.</p>

<p>Albert-<br>

"If he replies with a non sequitur about Aristotle of Immanuel Kant then we know things have gone wrong and we start over. - Wrong kind of Philosophy."<br>

I disagree. Just as a photograph comes down to technicality, there is but one "philosophy". Granted their are several branches, but thought is thought, no matter who is doing it. Unfortunately most PN users can't reference actual philosophers (I include myself for the most part), so the discussion typically becomes all mucked up in mixed ideas from every part of philosophy, even when the ideas are just opinions and not based in any understanding of the current wave of thought which itself has a foundation of thousands of years of informed thought and understanding. I personally would like to see more references to actual philosophy and why that great (huge) body of knowledge is important to photography and how it is influential upon photography and our various perspectives of the world we live in today. Maybe if more people read that kind of stuff, photography would offer more than just "absolutely dull but pretty and well-exposed photographs" as Fred puts it. On that note maybe we should talk about the atomists or empirical evidence as a "philisophical" starting point for this "exposure" conundrum.</p>

<p>Martin--</p>

<p>Right you are.</p>

<p>Recently, a PN photographer mentioned Plato's Allegory of the Cave in reference to one of my more "shadowy" photos. I didn't particularly find the reference applicable to that photo in particular, but told him I think it is extremely applicable to photography <i>per se</i>. We often get into discussions about whether or not a photograph captures the reality of the moment of capture. That reality, its possibilities, its "seemingness," and its actuality, is discussed by Plato in the Cave Allegory and, to me, is one of the most photogenic passages in all Philosophy.</p>

<p>http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/ALLEGORY.HTM (skip the Divided Line and scroll a bit down to the Allegory).</p>

<p>Aristotle recognized the cathartic nature of representational art. Plato thought that same representational quality was false and misleading. Discussing Aristotle and Plato relative to Photography has much merit. It's precisely the right kind of Philosophy.</p>

<p>Kant suggested moral imperatives. He <i>proved</i> moral leanings and features of being human. (I think those proofs are wrong and misguided, but enlightening.) Morality is often discussed with regard to photographing. An understanding of morality would be so helpful in those discussions which tend to flail about aimlessly based on unfounded opinions and unsubstantiated claims. Kant also believed in a sort of unreachable world of reality, a world behind and creating the world of appearances we perceive. Albert, if the notion of appearances and how they get created and interpreted doesn't apply to Photography, then I must be thinking strangely about Photography. </p>

<p>Fred's post, above, seems a brilliantly concise description of a spin on "philosophy of photography."</p>

<p>It might be helpful to remember that this Forum is said (on the home page) specifically to be "Discussion encompassing ethical, aesthetic, and sociological aspects of photography." </p>

<p>Oddly, perception is overlooked.</p>

<p>Few here seem interested in <strong>perception</strong> in photography: the sensory response to light in the environment (eg print or world or viewfinder)...the biological response. </p>

<p>One can, if one lies to oneself, wishing to confuse oneself, deny that perceptions assemble into wholes, in turn constituting "reality." A zen practitioner might laugh at the idea that there's a clap without two hands...but I suspect he wouldn't write "philosophically" about it (the difference between practitioners and teachers). He might, however, be interested in the light on the hands or in the sound of clapping.</p>

<p>I think that John's "perceptions assemble into wholes, in turn constituting 'reality' " is reasonable, justifiable, and he is not alone in his thinking. Though I think Plato's understanding of perceptions is deep and worth reading and his take on different ways reality reveals itself and also hides itself is worth considering, I don't like his setting up of the Unknown and Unperceived Reality as a mysterious and godlike concept.</p>

<p>Interestingly, Plato talked a lot about Knowledge and Opinion and made a lot of judgments about each. Opinions, he thought, were a dime a dozen. On that, I think he was onto something. Not recognizing what's an Opinion is even worse in Plato's eyes.</p>

<p>If you would like a taste of how "real" philosophers treat photography, you might be interested in reading a review of the collection of essays, <em><a href="http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=15286">Photography and Philosophy: Essays on the Pencil of Nature,</a></em> Scott Walden (ed.).</p>

<p>Based on the review, it's my feeling that the philosophers who contributed essays to the book don't understand photography and/or don't like it very much. << ----[ <em>that is an Opinion</em> ]</p>

<p>Fred and John-<br>

I am gratified by your insightful responses. I am interested in Photography in so many varying manner everything is fair game. Although some people prefer to focus very specifically, I tend to continue applying new philisophical and technical theory whenever I work- a method that works for me wonderfully. This couldn't be more timely as I have just finished an installation which deals with many of these qualities and leaves me steeped in thought (yes my own work makes me think about photography- the "canon" of).</p>

<p> My recent piece- http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pHu9jZzvgNg/SfdRWeYGFQI/AAAAAAAAAPI/JYvaQI--TCQ/s1600-h/MOMENT+1.jpg -is an outdoor installation comprised of some 50+ 8.5x11 prints of un-retouched, digital, abstract photographs taken with a point and shoot camera, and cut into 7 inch hexagons. They are installed publicly using glue and tape, with the intent for them to be un-installed, and the understanding that unforseen- but a potentially limited amount of- events will have some sort of effect on the materials and help describe the pluralistic and flexible nature of the medium- among the many other things which the piece is about. I photograph the piece throughout its installation documenting its "life". I did such in this case, photographing it the day and night of installation, awaiting the coming week's worth of rain and sun and what-not, while I was away for a week. Upon my return I found the piece to be gone, where I may never know- partly saddening and exciting. The piece, in a respect, has been reduced to 1's and 0's and is now squarely situated only in the technical realm. Yet it also inhabits the world of memory and even approaches the "existential" realm, much like the original post was partly about. I have been at this point before, but it none-the-less has had an impact on how I view and perceive my work, and which obviously had some sort of impact on another person, enough for them to take it down.</p>

<p>Philosophically the true story behind a man who gained his sight after years of blindness puts a new spin on Plato's Cave allegory in the movie At First Sight http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0132512/. The main character as a human is hard-wired to learn about the world around him with what ever senses he is given. He has had no sight for so much of his life that he perceives the world differently and has a hard time even interpreting an image when sight was given/restored. The mental picture of Truth he knew of the world was real but limited. We could say his 'view' was distorted by his limited scope of sensory input and thus inferior to a sighted person; but it is hubris to believe those with sight or a good camera would know more truth and thus the whole truth of their own limited perspective. He then has to make sense of the discordant images of things he never saw before but did imagine. To put ourselves in his position imagine If we start taking pictures of other wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum for the first time. We start to 'see' how much we really don't see and thus are blinder than a bee when it comes to UV radiation for instance.<br /> We with the eye for photography would be said to be more fixated on the sense of sight than some and thus see different truths to a situation than others and may see simple objects in a way that others ignore.<br /> From an objective view of photography one see millions of photons of light reflected, refracted or emitted from objects that traveled for several Millennia, years, or minutes from the galaxies, stars, and sun, or small fractions of a second from the local source. The photons that were intercepted by a complex apparatus called eyes or a camera were affected by how they were incident or emergent from many points in the objective point of view during the time it took the sensory systems to absorb enough photons of certain very specific wavelengths that are visible to humans and thus called "light." Photography is inherently 2 dimensional most of the time and thus throws away a lot of the information thrown at the observer. Then the sensory apparatus must give way to the brain and or computer chip processing of the image and thus subjectivity takes even more hold on the image of the 'truth' which was always a very limited perspective of a situation. A monitor refresh rate of as low as 1/30th of a second can give an illusion of a flickering TV picture as fluid motion because we see not at the truth at the ultimate Planck scale ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_time ) of time and space but at a human scale. Then the image must filter through the observer's neural pathways which takes at least 1/10th of a second and are dependent on previous experience and current state of mind and body thus loosing the true moment of eternity. Then no matter the material the image will fade or be destroyed by entropy.<br /> As a photographer then it is our task to choose the various settings of that clunky camera to do what our eyes and brains do for us somewhat automatically subconsciously and emphasize what is important at that 'moment' to us consciously. We divert attention to a situation or object in a situation that has some significance to us by snaring a few photons and process them into an Image (electronically or chemically) onto a limited medium. Then we hope that another will respond and see things our way despite being raised to see things in their own special way with their own apparatus. Thus a picture is not a movie but a summation of many moments and conditions not even present at the "moment of eternity."<br /> <br /> -"Is a photograph a copy of a real subject or is it a copy of a representation?"<br /> A photography is Neither of these. It is the original limited-representation or almost non-representation that can be copied and processed many ways. It is never truly seen the same even when processed or viewed by the same person under one lighting condition or monitor calibration because the human mind still processes the representation of the original finite information entity that excluded all other information at that segment of time according to its own predilection. A Camera Obscura ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura ) by definition excludes the all light at that moment in all but a very limited plane of recording media/selective viewing. An observer is by definition is discrete but also in flux. <br /></p>

<p>Christopher-<br>

Very well put. Having read my share of physics, theory and philosophy oriented books, and watched enough science channel and Nova to make anybody's eyes water and head hurt, I actually can follow and understand and even concur with your response. Now, does the carpenter represent Jesus (a fellow carpenter) or string theory (the basic building blocks of everything)? :) You've also moved into semiotics- maybe there is more than just a little philosophy involved in your take.</p>

<p>Martin S: quite apart from the thread, I very much like your photo installation.</p>

<p>Martin--</p>

<p>I also like it and appreciate your posting and discussing it. I think there is great potential in such living and conceptual work with photographs. It's hard to imagine the level of letting go that you have to achieve in order to create such a work, let alone have it removed like this. Perhaps it becomes a work of nihilism or dadaism or perhaps it simply falls into the category of vandalism. Either way, there is some gratification in the recognition that there is meaning in the fact that you'll never know where it's gone. In some ways, that's true of every photo one gives to the public. The figurative has met the literal. At a certain point, your photo is out of your hands.</p>