Capturing the moment or thinking you are?

<p>Felix and Fred-<br>

Thank You for the compliments. Fred, it does taking a lot of letting go. Photography in some respects is a very rigid, even conservative medium- as Chris pointed out so well. Going the other way is hard, but fruitful and rewarding. I still struggle with it sometimes- assembling a piece in the studio that works for me on many levels- just to leave it to the elements. It feels like being hit in the gut- no exaggeration! And sometimes nothing great comes of the piece that was good while still in the studio! Letting go is hard to do.... but fun. Thanks again. -Martin</p>

<p>More thought: Life=Movement (go to the most fundamental levels) -therefore a photograph is a mechanized recording of something that never really existed in the first place: stillness within life. The subject, the light, the ambiance are all very real- but move, they "live". The 1's and 0's, and subsequent prints etc... that now represent this "life" are in themselves a new reality- stillness- any change in that "lifeless" reality would therefore be movement and thusly "life". </p>

<p> </p>

<p>I also had a college professor that said, "Pictures are for beers. I take photographs." :)</p>

<p>Fred<br>

I really appreciate your May 10th post, related to my last comment. I think we are in the right track here in this thread with many more contributins and open-minded comentators than the opposite (although we still have those who like to show up in the middle of a progressive and constructive debate just to criticize it - OK, we should be open to that)</p>

<p>All: as the OP I should be more present to the discussions but unfortunatelly work is taking much of my time right now. Please lets keep feeding good ideas and references. I promised I'll be back soon.</p>

<p>In theory, there is no such thing as a discreet moment in the supra-quantum world. Photography relies upon the laws of physics. Every photograph, no matter how short the exposure time and how still the subject, in theory should contain some level of motion blur, because nothing is ever totally still.</p>

<p>The concept of limit and its epsilon-delta definition from calculus is apropos here. The faster the shutter speed, the closer we get to having a theoretically sharp image (in other words an infinitely short exposure time), but we can never get there in theory, because only a shutter speed of zero would achieve it. A fast shutter speed only reduces motion blur; it can never totally eliminate it theoretically speaking.</p>

<p>Yet, practically, there is such a thing as a perfectly sharp image, in photography; one that represents a moment. How can this be so? The answer lies in another limit: the limit of the system's resolving power. When our imaging system lacks the resolving power to sufficiently represent the motion blur, it is as if we indeed have a sharp image.</p>

<p>In the macroscopic world, which appears to be analog or continuous in nature, a good approximation of a moment is, for all intents and puroposes, visually indistinguishable from a "true" moment in the theoretical sense. As far as I know, photography is the only method that allows us to visually "capture" a "moment".</p>

<p>Regards,</p>

<p>Val J. Albert</p>

<p>Fred: I don't think your Greeks (or anybody) had "PERceptions." They had CONceptions. I'll accept that the two are commonly construed to be the same,despite dubious word usage, but the point I've tried to make is that PERCEPTION is the role of senses, not of mind. Yes, mind can interpret senses, but mind is not similar to senses.</p>

<p>Photography deals first with perceptions, at another level with conceptions.</p>

<p>Mind and senses are distinct...senses (such as output of rods and cones in eyes, without which we don't experience visual world or photographs) can be measured, whereas mind can only be reported.</p>

<p>Brain activity can be measured, perhaps indicating conceptualizing, but the activity of the brain is not only or necessarily "mind." Brain activity that we measure is electrical, heat, chemical etc... none of that is "mind" and there are no related senses other, perhaps, than heat and other primative non-referential feelings (agitation, meditative state etc).</p>

<p>I think it'd be better to use "conceptions" instead of "perceptions" when referring to ideas (such as those of Greeks) because, when we don't, we reduce our physical existence(as sensed) to mere ideas (as conceived)...one commonly overlooked Buddhist concept is that physical existence is closer to "reality" than is anything more ephemeral and dubious...such as an individual's "soul."</p>

<p>John--</p>

<p>Plato had many concepts about the role of perception. Most of what he talked about was the difference between Ideas (the ultimate of which were the Forms) and perceptions. He felt Ideas were far superior to perceptions and that only Ideas constituted reality. That's what I was talking about . . . and, as I said, disagree with. Nevertheless, as I said, his thinking about the matter was deep and is worth understanding because, though his conclusions may be wrong, much of his way of looking at things is enlightening. Where, specifically, do you think I conflated conception and perception?</p>

<p>John-<br>

Conception=creator & Perception=viewer in respect to visual arts. Is that right?</p>

<p>Conception <> Perception :</p>

<p> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0TvZRcwz4I">“Are we sleep-walking through our waking state or wake-walking through our dreams?”</a></p>

<p>You think you're alive, but you're just asleep in life's waiting room.... Ha ! Waking Life. Great film.</p>

<p><strong>Martin, I may not fully understand your post</strong>, but if you're suggesting that visual arts result in or spring from concepts of viewers/creators, transmitted from artist to viewer by perceptual media, probably becoming part of the viewer's concepts...yes...that works for me.<br>

<strong>Also,</strong> Martin, your installation was obviously worth the effort...great stuff. I don't know quite how to understand disappearing installations (as yours, or as done by ice sculptors or a painter I once knew), but not understanding may be the real juice in the whole exercise :-) </p>

<p><strong>Phylo, yes</strong>...thanks for remebering <strong>Waking Life</strong>. Lots of clips on Youtube...for example <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtuYWyjk4ZI&feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtuYWyjk4ZI&feature=related</a>. Dreams do challenge my perception/conception model...but I don't think they're "perceptions" even though they're typically visual...I think they're closer to conceptions: mind events which, like "conceptions" more generally, can lead to emotional and intellectual responses and in turn can do the"dream work" Freud talks about...which can be like dues-paying or having some waking experience, and doesn't require interpretation any more than waking experience requires interpretation.. </p>

<p><strong>Fred, I obviously misread</strong> something you said re Greeks/perception/conception. HOWEVER, since we're on the bleeding edge of something nearly (but not) semantic, it might be helpful if we could hear them speak, rather than read translated transcriptions, stuff some scholar said they said. I'm sensitive to this, partially because I'm reading one version of Odessey, preferring it strongly to another, and comparing to my memory of a relatively recent reading of James Joyce's Ulysses..</p>

<p><strong>What did Plato and Socrates consider to be perceptions?</strong> Images of stuff they identified in their environments? My tendency is to reduce "perception" to the bits of information as noticed and not organized into anything, probably not even patterns but certainly not "images", by tactile, olfactory, and optical sensors.</p>

<p>I agree with what you're saying re translations, etc. When one studies the Greeks, hopefully, a lot of the study is spent on comparing translations and really nuancing how they were using particular Greek words at the time. Very rarely, for example, will a Classics Philosophy professor use a translation of the word <em>logos</em> after he's given a long-winded explanation of the concept. No English word would suffice, though many texts translate it to "account" or even "discourse." The student would usually be assigned at least half a dozen articles on the word "logos" so that he could use it with the proper shades of meaning it demands. The Greek word <i>psuche</i> would never be translated to "psyche" because you'd never want to start associating it with that and not be mindful of the importance of breath in the concept. When I studied the Pre-Socratic philosophers, of whom only fragments are left, most of the time was spent on such considerations not only of what words could be proved to have been actually said but of what those words actually meant in the time and within the context . . .</p>

<p>As for Plato's and Socrates's use of "perception," they don't seem to have distinguished as finely as we would these days between the bits of information as noticed and the subsequent yet pre-conceptual organization or patterns of those bits. Since the organization of those bits is still so closely related to the bits, Plato would certainly still consider them in the realm of the senses, therefore in the realm of changing (Becoming rather than Being), therefore untrustworthy, and therefore merely like the shadows reflected on the wall of the cave. But, as we start abstracting and essentializing that organization, we start getting closer to the Forms or Ideas which Plato believed were the objects of true Knowledge and at a level high above perception. Perceptions, he would say, help us form Beliefs, which only take us so far. Ideas, he would say, are the realm of Knowledge and Truth, far surpassing mere Belief (which is much more like Opinion).</p>

<p>Regarding your first paragraph to Martin: Significant for me is not just the perceptible media but my perceptions and sensibilities while holding the camera. I can't see limiting the perception part of the equation either to the medium or to the viewer or to both. The photographer may more importantly be perceiving and visualizing in that "springing from" part of the equation even if he's also conceiving as he creates.</p>

<p>Fred, yes. Thanks.<br>

Photography does <em>tend </em>to center on instant decisions, which makes it similar to archery for me: In archery (traditional version) my experience is that I'm likely to hit what I perceived the instant of release, but if my awareness had drifted faintly at the moment of release, that's where the arrow would go. It's commonly said, and subjectively valid, that the smaller the "spot" on the target the more accurate the archer. I think this relates to philosophic concern about "reality" and "truth," but words can't come as close as can an arrow.</p>

<p><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=3679363">Martin Sobey</a> , May 12, 2009; 11:20 p.m.<br>

The picture is partly a representation of Christ in that we were told to look for the faces of God in what went on durring our mission trip to Mississippi to rebuild after Katrina. Here is the rest of the series. http://christopherlmoore.com/faces/</p>

<p>John-<br>

I was just trying to untangle the semantic region of my brain! Thanks for the nice words too. I find it funny that you mention Ice sculpture- as I have also gone there with my installations http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pHu9jZzvgNg/SZhD8PtrXKI/AAAAAAAAAMg/cch8M5lXYok/s1600-h/P1219312.jpg<br>

I guess its about, in part, the potential- just as with quantum mechanics. That potential for something to happen, as time moves on, is big for me. The piece grows as it deteriorates.<br>

Christopher Moore-<br>

When you are looking for something you will find it, however I am still unsure what I'm looking for. I think partly I am trying to show others a route to finding something. </p>