Our consciousness of making photos

<p>In a recent thread, Don E said "In the taking [of a photograph], there is often no time to think through the situation and make conscious decisions." I've experienced that as well.</p>

<p>So, what role does consciousness* and intention** play in your photograph making?</p>

<p>While I like to be "in the moment" when shooting, and I enjoy the rush of unexpected moments and situations, I also think a degree of intentionality is significant for my making photographs. I don't think my photographs just happen and I'm less inclined to think the process is completely mysterious or beyond my seeing to it that a certain directed voice is beginning to emerge and will further develop and mature the longer I do this.</p>

<p>I try to be aware of the photographic tools I have at my disposal. I try to be aware, for example, of various kinds of energy and light that work different ways and have if not specific at least general tendencies to be expressive of certain types of feelings/emotions. I think a lot about how different symbols in my own culture may read and may add depth and texture to a photo. I'm aware more and more of how certain colors will translate into black and white photographs. I'm flexible with these tools and there are no all-encompassing "rules" for their use, but they seem to be tools because they tend to work a certain way and help me achieve what I may want to express. As I said in another thread, I don't think about this stuff in the moment when I snap the shutter. Most of the thoughts come late at night in bed or when I'm driving or looking at photos in a gallery.</p>

<p>But I'm also aware that I'm not as purposeful as may sometimes be read into my photos. Sure, questions like "what were you trying to say" can sometimes be answered at least up to a certain point and it would be a copout for me to say in response, "whatever you, the viewer, think it says." Often, I may not have a specific "message" to convey, but someone's reaction or interpretation (especially if echoed by a lot of folks) may tell me I haven't accomplished what I thought I did. I usually have at least a vague sense of how I want a photo to come across, how I want it to "read." But in some instances, I can't really talk much about my purpose or intention. It simply seems to have happened and all interpretation and meaning seems to come after the fact. Sometimes, I want to answer "because it looked right to me." Even these kinds of photos, whether by me or by others I know, will still seem to fit into the context of my own or the others' work. If that's the case, it still seems to me that some sort of intentionality, and not just complete happenstance or randomness, is at work.</p>

<p>How about you?<br /> ___________________<br /> *consciousness - awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings; full activity of the mind</p>

<p>**intention - purpose or attitude toward the effect of one's actions</p>

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<p>So, what role does consciousness* and intention** play in your photograph making?</p>

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<p>It's not clear if you are talking about a general response to "your" or an individual response. In the big picture view of this, there is a wide range of types of photography. Sports, weddings, PJ, paparazzi, street shooting all require instant response at some point. Set-ups in the studio involve a huge amount of thought. In the former, success often comes from a lot of experience that has been internalized. Is it "conscious"? I think that's hard to tell without attaching some electrodes to the brain - it's certainly not clear to me if my instant responses are done with a few nanoseconds of conscious thought or just happen. </p>

<p>Then there's the case of having a set of triggers that one is looking for. One can go out thinking "I want to capture x for this series I'm working on." The conscious part may already have been done when the opportunity arises. And the message may be very specific in this type of shooting.</p>

<p>Jeff--</p>

<p>I'm looking for individual responses. You bring up the important point about different types of photography. I also appreciate your use of the word "internalize." Thanks.</p>

<p>Personally ... I would say that a mix of instinct with consciousness and intentionality applies to <em><strong>all</strong> </em> photographs; but the proportions are different.<br>

Jeff's paparazzi , street and sports photographers all go out with conscious intention, tuned up to the moment when a picture appears and instinct trips the button. (In my misspent youth, combat work which is about as instinctive as anything can get was still the instinctive culmination of conscious intentionality leading up to the moment.)<br>

A studio photographer puts far more planning into the run up, but still has that intinctive moment when s/he <em>knows</em> that everything is now right for the exposure. This applies even with table top or still life: there is no urgent rush to press the button once the rightness has been recognised, but the recognition itself in internal.<br>

OK, I concede that there <em>may</em> well be photographers to whom this "instinctive moment" doesn't apply at all (though I'm certain they are very fewand far between)... but the opposite I don't see. Even if I send out a camera on an autonomous robot trolley with a random timer, I have still planned and intended a particular kind of photograph.<br>

Pulling back to me, as you have asked: consciousness and intentionality are very important to me on either side of the actual moment of exposure, but not at all at the moment itself.</p>

<p>Fred<br />This is an interesting subject that I thought about not ones. Express it in English is not easy but I will try. I think first that as your knowledge is wider in understanding what photography as a medium is, what is this tool, I mean as a tool to express your inner world, your thoughts, your personal life, which means understanding what your life are, your culture connected to your life, your place in your surrounding your creative drives. I think that your intentions in using this medium are connected to your conscious/ unconsciousness which both are a part of the process. I see it as well as culture/education dependent.I see it as well as feeling/emotion dependent.</p>

<p>I know that when I push the shutter, it is most of the time an inner drive and trigger to shoot this scene and not another. Many things are entering my thoughts while post processing, I ask myself why was I attracted to this scene? Working with the performing arts, why this fraction of a second in a long show or process, is the second I pushed the shutter?all this is part of my thoughts of my creation. Some are very clear at the moment, as the connection is clear because it connects some event of my life or thoughts I have had to the subject, and some are not, and are presenting themselves only later when I think of what and why I photographed.</p>

<p>Another question is what my intentions/feeling were creating a photo, and what the viewer think.</p>

<p>I assume that in this spot our thoughts are different. I see photography as an unending learning process, and what my intentions were, will not necessarily be translated to the viewer. So all sort of reactions will be the results. Some will understand my line of work, I mean, subject, composition, feeling, colors message etc,some will think differently and will write and/or show me what they think. We have a say here( free translation): "from all the people that tried to teach me, I became more educated." what I mean is that sometimes! commentary of a photo will takes me deeper into myself, and I accept, as well as in other times I will l not.</p>

<p>I like the serendipitous shot: one that captures something far beyond the intention or even the awareness of the photographer at the moment of taking the picture.</p>

<p>The 1966 movie <em>Blowup</em> by Michelangelo Antonioni comes to mind. In that movie, only the enlarged negative contains the most interesting information of all.</p>

<p>(For those who have not seen it, I will not say more for fear of being called a plot-spoiler. For those who do not mind having the plot spoiled, see this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowup )</p>

<p>I have nothing as dramatic to give as a personal example, but I can surely say that the greatest joy in downloading and browsing big files can be finding something that one did not expect to capture--or at least did not expect to be the best "keeper" of the day. It is occasionally a crop from one small corner of the original capture.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>Pnina--</p>

<p>On your last point, we don't differ. Sometimes intentions don't transfer to the viewer and that can be fine. I believe photos take on lives of their own when they become public and I wouldn't expect to or want to try to control the reaction to them. At the same time, I've seen that used as an excuse for sloppy execution and lack of clarity on the approach to a given photo. (Sometimes lack of clarity can be a significant aspect of a photo and a worthwhile one, and sometimes it is a flaw.) Sometimes, I have no discernible intention but sometimes I do. And sometimes I have at least a general emotional direction toward which I am moving. Did I want to present this person as a monster or as benign? If I left it ambiguous, I'd be open to all interpretations. If, however, I was really trying to express the gentleness in the person and how securely and warmly that made me feel and many people view the person as evil, I may have some photographic work to do. When my intention is not grasped by a whole lot of people, I may sometimes say "to each his own" but then there are times I might also say that I failed to reach my viewers in a way that I might have intended. It will vary from situation to situation and the only thing I have to go on is being honest with myself. I've shown photos where I am happy with quite a wide variety of reactions, often. But I've also shown photos where the feedback given helped show me that I missed the emotional point I might have been striving for. Sometimes there's no particular emotional track and so simply getting a response will be a great result.</p>

<p>Felix--</p>

<p>I see it as a balancing act and matter of degree as well. Your description of studio work seems apt. I don't work much in a studio but I do plan many shots and still can be aware of the instinctive side kicking in during the process. I will admit that sometimes that moment feels more instinctual than others. Sometimes it just feels like the planning leads to the moment and then, snap, and it's done, with no particular moment of instinct. I say it "feels" like that because I imagine there's more going on than I'm necessarily aware of, even after the fact.</p>

<p>As for consciousness and intentionality seeming to be present in the moment of shutter snapping itself, I think I have been that aware at some moments of capture. I will sometimes quite suddenly move the camera or widen the framing at the very last second, not always out of instinct but because something in that very moment occurs to me consciously that says "this is the picture to take" or "here's the point of the moment or scene."</p>

<p>In my case, intention and consciousness are like ferrets, taking turns chasing each other.</p>

<p> Intentions, like all best-laid plans, gain momentum leading up to the act of photography. The internal dialog stops at that point. I enter a meditative state of heightened awareness. The technical comes autonomically, like breathing. The technical comes autonomically. The marvels and terrors of even the most quotidian bits become spellbinding. Often it feels like so much is swimming through the fingers of my dreams.</p>

<p>I am still me. What I see is only what I am prepared to see, and only in the way I am prepared to see it. Intention continues at a subducted level, transformed by the contingencies imposed by real life. Ex post photo, it, along with everything else, returns, for analysis, post processing, and re-integrating what was learned along the way.</p>

<p> My answer to the ubiquitous 'what were you trying to say' is "What you are seeing, the way you are seeing it". If I could have said it in a few words, I could have saved reams of money, time, my back, and scribbled a note instead. The viewer will see what s/he ready to see. Often that entails things the photographer didn't see, which is one of many fantastic things about the medium.</p>

<p>Good question, Fred.</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>But I've also shown photos where the feedback given helped show me that I missed the emotional point I might have been striving for</p>

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<p>Interesting. The thing that I'm primarily - if not only - striving for in my personal photographic work is adhering to my own consciousness ( which I understand = emotional point ), and not to how others might perceive this consciousness, or the expression of it, to be, or NOT to be. And I don't think that ones own consciousness is something that one strives for, it's simply that what we've got, and nothing else. In the same way, I guess consciousness and intentionality, don't necessarily play any bigger role in my personal photography then they play a role the moment I'm getting out of bed, doing all sorts of non - photographic things. It feels strange, to strive for an emotional point in expression ( like striving for consciousness). This emotional point, it's not that what one begins the day and ends the day with, but surely it's that what's always inbetween and consequently that what is "translated" into photographs.. Others can and probably will perceive / give the photographs a whole different meaning, but that wouldn't change the reason why I myself ( or anyone else ) makes the photographs the way they are. Because isn't this reason exactly that what matters most , for if it didn't matter ( to me, to you ) then there wouldn't be no point in making the photographs at all.</p>

<p>Phylo--</p>

<p>Just to be clear. I'm not striving for a certain consciousness. I'm striving to express mine. And I'm not saying that I would let others influence me to make a different emotional statement than the one I genuinely felt. Like you, I strive to stay true to my own consciousness, desires, and feelings. But I certainly will allow teachers, friends, fellow photographers and even remote viewers' reactions to act as some kind of gauge I use to tell if I achieved what I wanted or what I thought I did. </p>

<p>Part of my desire to photograph is a desire to communicate visually. Communication requires effectively using a language or at least some sort of tools. If my photographs were a matter simply of expressing myself, in isolation and with no other care than self, how others react might be of little consequence. Also, I consider myself in a learning stage, which is why I joined PN and post photos for critique. If I didn't think I'd be moved or affected by at least some critiques, why would I bother?</p>

<p>It doesn't feel "strange" to me to strive for an emotional point in some cases. There are some photos with which I aim to take a stand. Not necessarily a political or social stand, but a stand of story and feeling. Do I want to present the 50-year-old guy with his baby picture behind him in a nostalgic way, a sad way, from a position of strength having grown, from a position of longing missing his long-gone youth? Strange though it may seem to you, yes, I often have an emotional point to make. If others give the photo a very different meaning, only I can judge whether that's because they simply went off on their own trip and I accept that or because I missed the mark with my photo.</p>

<p>Just the other day, I went to a staged reading of a new play written by a friend of mine. Afterward, the audience spent an hour reacting to a variety of things in the play. This is fairly typical, and the final rewrite will be done now and the play is set to open in a couple of months. And I don't question that my friend, the playwright, in making the rewrites will still be staying true to his vision and consciousness. And he will likely improve his play.</p>

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<p>"My answer to the ubiquitous 'what were you trying to say' is 'What you are seeing, the way you are seeing it'. If I could have said it in a few words, I could have saved reams of money, time, my back, and scribbled a note instead." --Luis G</p>

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<p>Luis, that's great. Thanks. It's a good answer to an often unreasonable question. At the same time, sometimes I find it helps to discuss intent, motivation, meaning, etc. Things about photographs can be put into words even though photographs themselves can't be.</p>

<p>to build a house you need a solid foundation. And so it is here. The serendipity Lannie mentioned for instance is a flawed concept in this context I think. The serendipity part may be an encounter of sorts but what one extracts from that is based on something that you have learned very consciously and apply subconsciously. Experience indeed. When I'm out on the street all day being "in the moment" is merely a concentrated effort. That's why it sometimes works and sometimes it doesn't and that's why most of us are likely to be quite exhausted after such a day.</p>

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<p>The serendipity Lannie mentioned for instance is a flawed concept in this context I think. The serendipity part may be an encounter of sorts but what one extracts from that is based on something that you have learned very consciously and apply subconsciously.</p>

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<p>Then again, sometimes you just get lucky, as in the discovery of the vulcanization of rubber, or as in this photo:</p>

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<p>http://philip.greenspun.com/images/pcd0866/play-the-chessmaster-17</p>

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<p>As Phil Greenspun wrote about the above picture,</p>

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<p>Had I been forced to edit this in real-time, I'd probably have tossed it. Yet upon close inspection, the upper-right corner of the frame reveals a contorted photographer! A perfect image for photo.net! I didn't really notice it until many months after I took the picture.</p>

 

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<p>None of this is to deny Tom's point about experience in the context of most "lucky photos," of course: even the vulcanization of rubber took some experience and imagination in order to see both the implications of the partial hardening of raw, sticky rubber--as well as the marketing potential.</p>

<p>Fred is also surely correct that "it still seems to me that some sort of intentionality, and not just complete happenstance or randomness, is at work."</p>

<p>So, whether we are thinking about intention at the time of the photo, or experience during or after the processing phase, pure luck <em>qua</em> randomness is rarely what gives us what we want. (I just sort of wanted an excuse to give a free plug to <em>Blowup</em> , which I just recently saw for the first time since late 1966 or early 1967. It's a good one, even better than <em>One Hour Photo</em> .)</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>. . . and Phil G. had the creative imagination to see the implications of the picture of the chessmaster for Photo.net.</p>

<p>Serendipity is yet real, of course. Some of our best photo opportunities can come while we are at least <em>looking</em> for something else. They are sometimes (often?) something we find on the way to where we are going to be shooting, or they are shots that we could not have anticipated before we got there--or before we got to the post-processing phase. Perhaps most often they are shots that we made in addition to our shooting agenda for the day, typically never imagining that they would wind up being the real keepers.</p>

<p>I am not sure how much of that is about pure serendipity, of course, but I am continually surprised by how rarely the best pictures are the ones that I expected to get. Perhaps "surprise" is indeed the better word in this context than mere serendipity, much less randomness. There are typically a lot of good surprises awaiting us when we get the film or the files back from the shoot.</p>

<p>Surprises are also the reason a lot of us carry point-and-shoots in our pockets. . . .</p>

<p>Fred is still right about intentionality, I hasten to add.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p><em>"Then again, sometimes you just get lucky, as in the discovery of the vulcanization of rubber..."</em></p>

<p>although indeed somewhat lucky in the end it was nevertheless as much a result of a whole lot of trial and error.</p>

<p>Sure serendipity is real but it's nevertheless someting you can prepare for. To use a simplification, if I go for a shoot on the racetrack I have no control of whether a crash will happen but I can take such an eventuality into account. When out on the street I can't control the actual environment. What I can do however is use my experience and anticipate what's going to happen in front of me. It's there that you can apply some sort of control. Does it work always? No, of course not but on the other hand you can give "luck" a nudge.</p>

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<p><em>"Then again, sometimes you just get lucky, as in the discovery of the vulcanization of rubber..."</em> <br /> <em><br /> </em> <br /> although indeed somewhat lucky in the end it was nevertheless as much a result of a whole lot of trial and error.</p>

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<p>In the case of rubber, it had something to do with spilling the rubber sap onto some sulfur, or vice versa, if I am not mistaken. Even there, however, Goodyear had the good sense to see the potential when no one else did, even after he told them about the results: the hardening and elasticity of what had been merely sticky sap.</p>

<p>I am not challenging you, Ton. I actually agree with you. I would add also that the skills of the darkroom (digital or otherwise) figure largely in what possibilities one can see and bring to fruition. The skills at taking photos are only a part of it.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Ton</p>

<p> When you go out to shoot in the streets, you take with you not only your camera(s) and lenses. You take with you your intentions, your experience and your expectations. You will identify a scene faster than a less experienced photographer in that genre .</p>

<p>I (as an example) working with dance groups for a long time will identify faster the scene or gesture I will push the shutter for, but not all of it is conscious. Even though the "house foundation' is present.</p>

<p>I think that Lannie has a point. With all the mentioned rest, there are as well, surprises , happenstance, and serendipity. And that is Imo the magic of photography as a creating tool. Add to this the skills of post processing, which is an important part as well. Well photography is an unending learning and accumulated experience.</p>

<p>"In the field of observation, chance favors the prepared mind."<br>

<br /> --<em>Louis Pasteur</em> (Dec. 7, 1854, Lecture, University of Lille)</p>

<p>Absolutely, Fred.</p>

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<p>Just to be clear. I'm not striving for a certain consciousness. I'm striving to express mine. And I'm not saying that I would let others influence me to make a different emotional statement than the one I genuinely felt. Like you, I strive to stay true to my own consciousness, desires, and feelings. But I certainly will allow teachers, friends, fellow photographers and even remote viewers' reactions to act as some kind of gauge I use to tell if I achieved what I wanted or what I thought I did. .....</p>

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<p>........</p>

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<p>Fred, yes, absolutely. Perhaps it's about a subtle difference in approach of different subjects. Mostly, for now, I tend to photograph that what's already out there. Discovering certain scene's / subjects by use of an already existing set of triggers, like Jeff Spirer said. If I would be doing portraits the way you do them, with great effort and intention, then an adding up of useful triggers, from your own and your subjects point of view as well as from the future viewer of the photograph, seems relevant, necessary even. I said adding up of triggers, emotional points, but it probably makes more sense to think of it as an aligning of triggers : alligning your own triggers with your subjects triggers during the portraitsession, and finally, if your conscious intention is recognized in the photograph, the alligning with the viewers emotional reaction to it. This ofcourse can also take place in every other type of photograph, but not always in the searching for "static" subjects resulting in a particular photograph, where there's only the photographer, the observer being the observed. But in portraits, there's more a trade of energy between photographer and the one being photographed, and a conscious decision to make the picture at the peak of this energy. So yes, it's logical when you might say that for your next portraitsession you're going to take a different approach, create a different trade of aura between you and the person you're going to photograph, to make the next reaction of viewers of your photographs more in line with your own base emotional point.<br /> <br /><br /> Regarding doing portraits, I like the possibilities they contain, the story's that may or may not unfold out of the connection of energy and aura between the photographer and the person(s) photographed, for however short a period of time. The camera used as a tool for initiating the possibility of a new outcome of the photographers / subjects own reality...the uncertainty of it.</p>

<p>"Mechanical excellence is the vehicle for genius" - so said William Blake, the great Romantic poet and artist. In saying this he means that craft is necessary but not sufficient for achieving great art. Photographers, like musicians, must practise their craft until the mechanics of the materials and the tools are transcended. Only when the act of taking photographs becomes second nature, that is when we stop thinking consciously about film speeds, apertures and shutter speeds, can we engage fully with the subject. In other words our consciousness in wholly engaged with the subject and not wrestling with technical matters. In this we are like the musician who has practised a piece of music to such a degree that he or she is only conscious of the music and its interpretation.<br>

But finally, at the moment of 'pressing the button', to borrow from Horvat, even thought that is fully intentional, there is still that margin of possibility where sometimes the sublime happens - and sometimes it doesn't. </p>

<p>Fred, the situations I refer to when I write "no time to think" occur when something catches my attention as a photographer -- a stimulus -- it could be anything storefront, person, tree, pole, dog -- and my response is to take a photo. 'Catches my attention' means a feeling, a gut feeling. The kind of feeling that, when you don't have a camera, the twitch-muscles in your forearms and fingers are activated as if you had one in your hands. I cultivate getting the response close to the stimulus, in time. It is purely emotional; an emotion is the motion in bodily systems, the 'throb', the 'pang', the 'gut feeling', followed quickly by something in language, a thought which may characterize what we are feeling (I'm in love. I'm scared, how ugly, how beautiful). I want to have pushed the button before the thought forms.</p>

<p>My logic is that if there's something in my 'cone of light' that affects me like that, then I need to know about it as a photographer and should take the picture.</p>

<p>With things that persist in time, such as the storefront, it is possible to come back to it and shoot in a more formal way, and a very good photo might result, probably a lot better technically than the response snap. But we don't cross the same river twice, and moreso, it is not the same "I" that crosses both times.</p>

 

<p>"it is not the same "I" that crosses both times."</p>

<p>Don--</p>

<p>In many ways, it's not the same storefront either. Something about it will have changed when you come back to it . . . a different car parked in front of it, the sunlight falling differently, perhaps a haze in the air, a child will ride by on a bicycle.</p>

<p>"followed quickly by something in language, a thought which may characterize what we are feeling (I'm in love. I'm scared, how ugly, how beautiful)"</p>

<p>Yes. That's why, sometimes, when people project with language certain thoughts or interpretations onto a photo, it will seem so foreign. Because I'm more in touch with that moment, which seemed to be free of those things. They see only the photo, and both they and I will have had time to think about stuff before we analyze what we see.</p>

<p>Chris--</p>

<p>Thanks for bringing in the technical side. As much fluency as possible is a great aid in this process. I was originally talking about consciousness of intent, emotion, purpose, even ultimate product. But I think it's a good addition to talk about consciousness of technique as well. </p>