The Psychology of Photography: What Drives Us to Shoot?

<p>For Q.G.:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>This Is Just to Say<br>

<em>by William Carlos Williams</em></p>

<p>I have eaten<br>

the plums<br>

that were in<br>

the icebox<br>

<br /><br />and which<br>

you were probably<br>

saving<br>

for breakfast<br>

<br /><br />Forgive me<br>

they were delicious<br>

so sweet<br>

and so cold</p>

</blockquote>

For Julie:<br><br><i>"E.On, SSE, Scottish Power and Npower customers with typical usage on standard tariffs will still be paying at least £1,050 a year, after the cuts, and those from other firms even more. Yet the market's cheapest tariffs for switchers are under £770 a year on the same usage," said Martin Lewis, founder of Money Saving Expert."</i><br><br>BBC News, "Npower to cut gas price by 5.2%"

<p>For Q.G.:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p><strong>The World’s Greatest Tricycle Rider</strong><br>

<em>by C.K. Williams</em></p>

<p>The world’s greatest tricycle-rider<br>

is in my heart, riding like a wildman,<br>

no hands, almost upside down along<br>

the walls and over the high curbs<br>

and stoops, his bell rapid firing,<br>

the sun spinning in his spokes like a flame.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>[first verse only]</p>

<p><a href="/photodb/folder?folder_id=1079539"><em><strong>Here are some variations on several shots</strong></em></a> which I shot with everything from my cell phone camera to my D800E--most made while driving home from a distant campus where I commuted from for one semester only. The university is famous for being the alma mater of arch-reactionary former Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina. Do they reflect my relief or sense of freedom upon escaping every day? I have no idea. I do remember turning seventy years old during the semester and thinking "what a long, strange trip its been" as I blithely shot (often one-handed) from my car as it raced through the Carolina countryside--forty-one years after having first entered the classroom to teach as a grad assistant back in 1974. I had also lost my ex-wife to cancer back in January, 2015, a few months before these were made. Is any of that relevant? Maybe, but I surely cannot say what might have affected what.</p>

<p>The images may reflect on my moods, emotions, or other things relating to my psychological state at the time of shooting or processing, but I don't remember any specifics. I just remember going with whatever was visually pleasing at the time of both shooting and processing. As I told Fred G. on another thread, I played a lot of moody music while doing the processing at home, but I could not begin to say how or even if any of that affected the "psychological content" (if any) of the shots in question--<em>but I can tell you which color sliders I used on Photoshop</em> using layers to achieve black and white and other monochromatic effects.</p>

<p>That is my way of saying that a complex of factors may have affected my psychological state during both shooting and processing, but I took no notes of my psychological states and would thus be reluctant to draw any conclusions relating my psychological states to the resulting images.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>I could write poetry about my Pyrex cup. It shows me so many wonderful visions...</p><div></div>

See (one post above this one), Julie, that it's not that difficult? What's holding you back?<br><br>Landrum, difficult to say, but what would you say: is there a question (what drove you to do something, anything, to those images) that preceeds the question why you did what you did to those images that notes, had they been taken, might answer? Is there a why separate from the what? I tend to think there is, hence the uncertainty about what to do to those images, yet a decision (put into action) that you should do something to those images.

<p>To bear witness, to what intrigues, attracts, fascinates.</p><div></div>

<p>Q.G., there was a lot of trial and error on those photos because I had just learned how to use layers and sliders to achieve certain effects in black and white photography.</p>

<p>Perhaps with time I will be able to predict the results. I am not there yet.</p>

<p>The "what and why" both at the point I took and processed them was more along the lines of, "Let's see what this does."</p>

<p>I hope to progress beyond that primitive level in terms of understanding what makes a photo a good and evocative photo--and how to get that result.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>Just some nice prints of the family, trips and such. It's nice to be able to go back and look at the photo albums and see how the kids have grown and now taking photos of the Grandkids growing like weeds. A roll of Tri-X is still a lot of fun. The process from the new box of film to prints in the albums has always been a fun journey. I would not say I am driven however. It's just taking pictures is all. Well now that the labs and camera's stores are out of business it's actually turned out to be kind of fun to develop the film at home. </p>

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<p>"Let's see what this does."<br /> I hope to progress beyond that primitive level in terms of understanding what makes a photo a good and evocative photo</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The answer, Lannie, is I believe in your first phrase. Exploration is a necessary requisite of a creative process, to achieve a good and evocative (dare I say "expressive") result.</p>

<p>Most of the time I find photography amusing, as Ross says, and I would suppose that, without too much error in generalising, it underlies what drives us to shoot most of the time. Desiring something beyond that, in the manner of the quest or approach of an artist, is more of an investment of energy, time, and exploration and of really thinking outside of the box.</p>

<p>Perhaps making a photograph is just too simple these days (whether with a cellphone, 800E, A7RII or a Panasonic compact) and it lulls us into minimising our drive (mental, or 4 wheeled, in search of images) and "just letting photos happen." I have sometimes benefited from the latter, much like the brilliant humor I can sometimes stumble across and emit without really thinking about it - namely an "accident" (albeit prepared for in some way in our subconscious). Serendipity is sometimes beneficial, but the drive for evocative or fine photography is often more arduous - giving sense to the phrase that creativity or innovation is "1 % inspiration and 99 % perspiration." I am preparing a small exhibition ("Genius loci") for next summer and can certainly attest to the perspiration part (spent to let loose the 1%, or materialize it).</p>

<p>But we can always be driven by and benefit from the fun aspect, as Ross mentions. A palatable fall back position when what we are driven to accomplish seems remote in our viewfinder.</p>

<p>food, clothes, rent</p>

I also believe the answer is in that first phrase, Landrum, though what it is is not yet clear.<br>That you want to "progress beyond that primitive level" begs the original question. Why? Why this (and not advanced pole fishing)? And what drives you?

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<p>food, clothes, rent</p>

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<p>Now that is a motivation that I can understand. I just take family photos but I do understand paying the bills. For me paying the bills has always been a prime factor in not spending to much on photography or my other hobbies. I probably spend the most on cycling. Shooting a couple rolls of film every month just does not cost that much. </p>

<p>Drive to shoot images safely, Ross. Cycling is a great way to see things, at least for those of us who cycle slow enough to do so (and unable to be as sporting as some for whom hills are just a piece of cake).</p>

<p>Well Arthur I am a lifelong cyclist and I can go up hill pretty well. I think that my friends that climb faster then I do suffer about the same. They just suffer at about 2mph faster then I suffer. However Saturday morning I was right in the front but I trained all winter and the other guys enjoyed a lot of pie I think. I noticed some extra pounds out there but they are much younger and in a few weeks they will drop me like a rock. <br>

I do not carry a camera when cycling except my cell phone. Enough gadgets really as I have my phone, my Garmin GPS, a battery powered tail light and a headlight if I go on the Tuesday after work ride. We push the daylight pretty hard at least until the time change. </p>

<p>In my college years I would many times carry a Ricoh 500 fixed lens camera. It had a nice lens on it and I got a lot of great shots. It was small and light enough to pack along when touring. </p>

<p>We hike a lot and I always have a camera with me. We went hiking on Sunday thinking everyone would be watching football. Boy was I wrong as there were many people there hiking. Everybody seems to be using their cell phones for camera's these days but I brought along my F100 which gets kind of heavy after a while. We hiked for 4 hours. </p>

<p>Lannie:</p>

<p>Amazingly I didn't notice this thread until a few minutes ago. In any case, my answer to your first question is simple. I take photographs to try making sense of the world, due events earlier in my life that led me to think for a long time that there is no sense whatsoever to be found. Perhaps that explain why I've done so many abstracts. </p>

<p>As to why we like what we like, my initial urge was to respond flippantly by asking, "Why not?" More seriously, I've always felt a strong pull toward Maslow's hierarchy of needs. From a psychological standpoint, I think it does well to explain the phenomenon or liking.</p>

<p>Michael, would you put photography (and the arts in general?) in Maslow's highest category, "self-actualization"? Or is the need for artistic or other self-expression at some more basic level? At stake is whether Maslow's categories are correctly ordered.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

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<p>Perfume.<br /> The space and the condition, not the things.<br /> Full-body witnessing.<br>

Does that sound right, Lannie?</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Julie, I'm not sure I understand. I'm trying to relate the above to the question of what impels us to shoot. </p>

<p>"Full-body witnessing"? What does that mean?</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>Passion.</p>

<p>Lupo, not sure what you mean with regard to the term proof of life which I've understood to be associated with ransom demands during kidnappings.</p>

<p>So proof of life with regard to photography I'm guessing you mean that if you're photographing then that proves you're alive?</p>

<p>Thanks for the kind response.</p>

 

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<p>Passion.</p>

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<p>Yes, Karim, passion--or at least that is what I believe <em>should</em> drive us. Where there is no passion, nothing is authentic, and what passes for art will only be artifice. It will be about the external and the superficial. It will be done for show, and its egotistical preoccupation with what others think will show. Without passion in art, one is left, I believe, with that which is not only artificial, but phony.</p>

<p>As Brian Mottershead once said during his tenure here on Photo.net, "the worst photography on Photo.net is failed art," or words to that effect.</p>

<p>"Failed art." One finds it everywhere. It is phony, pretentious, pseudo-sophisticated, superficial, and artificial. It has no soul, no passion, no genuine emotion. It is finally. . . vacuous, empty.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>1. Nobody knows what art 'is.'<br>

2. Bad art is still art.<br>

3. What is 'failed' art? If it enrages, moves, disturbs you, then I'd say it's more art than that which you find comfortable.</p>

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<p>If it enrages, moves, disturbs you, then I'd say it's more art than that which you find comfortable.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>I agree with that, Julie. Not all art is pretty, nor should it strive to be. It may yet be "pleasing" to the artist who captures or creates it, since it achieved or produced the desired effect. The viewer, on the other hand, may be revolted. Not every portrayal of reality is going to produce an agreeable emotion.</p>

<p>That which is revolting can, I believe, still be art. One may even be driven to expose that which is revolting, such as by showing the bitter fruits of exploitation and discrimination, or the pain and suffering of the Depression and the Dust Bowl.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>The point of much of art is to change your mind.</p>

<p>Change your mind. </p>

There is no mystery to what art is.<br>If it "enrages, moves, disturbs you" it is no more art than art that doesn't. It may be less or more important, poignant, relevant, expressive, etc. But just like bad art is still art (though bad art), that is not a measure for what is or is not art.<br>It would help, i think, if you regard art as you would language (and it would be right to do so too). Form. Not content. Whether something said is shocking, revolting, disturbing, moving or comforting, soothing, pleasing or boring does not touch the nature of the expression as such. The power, the impact of an expression is just that. It's not the nature of that expression as expression. 'Even' boring and bad art is art. Art of no consequence and rightfully ignored or dismissed and soon forgotten. But art still.<br><br>The idea that art aims to change your mind expresses one particular view on life, the universe and everything. It is - again - content, what to use art for. Not about what art is. "The point of" already says that, but it deserves underlining.