Photography: Living In The Moment

<p>Recently I was reminded of the value of "living in the moment". Since I have a 2-week old son, I commented (while in a bit of a jaded state of mind) that it is difficult to live in the moment in the presence of constant fussing, diaper changing, etc. And then there was the first bath--without fussing or other incident--which was enjoyable, an opportunity to "live in the moment", and an excellent photo opportunity.<br>

Then I realized that, at least many times, photography forces me to live in the moment. So I guess I would be interested in hearing both concurrences and exceptions to this idea. In other words, does photography necessarily cause the photographer to live in the moment, ie. to focus on the present (perhaps with and without enjoying to do so)? And if caused to focus on the present without the enjoyment, why? And if not focused on the present during photography, why?<br>

From reviewing some previous posts in this forum (by a search on PN of "living in the moment") I can see that, for example, an amateur photographer "lives in the moment" during photography, and believes that he would not like to be a professional photographer. Perhaps the professional *might* be more concerned about making the living, planning for the client, etc. Or perhaps some professional photographers really have it good and thoroughly enjoy their profession most or all of the time?</p>

 

<p>I've found, as I do ever more of it, that my goal is to produce an image that <em>conveys</em> the moment to the eventual audience. That means that one has to understand that a moment is about to occur, and be able to record it in a way that is, narratively, able to wrap that moment up and deliver it to a viewer.<br /><br />That means that as a photographer, the moment you're sometimes thinking about is the moment that the audience will be looking at the image, and how they'll be relating to it. In short: I've found that I have to be in the moment, while simultaneously living in a future moment when the intended audience will be digesting the image. To not keep that second moment in mind risks misunderstanding when the important, while-you're-looking-at-it moment is abount to happen. Because if you're not always asking yourself, "Why am I making this photograph?" then you're quite possibly just flailing around.<br /><br />At this point, I'm experiencing things very differently with camera in hand than with camera in bag, back in the car or on the shelf. The process of deciding what it is I want to communicate, and then planning, visualizing, and executing the shot ... that's a series of moments that I'm very much <em>in</em>, and if I can't enjoy that, then I really should just sell all of the gear and keep a P&S camera in the wife's purse.<br /><br />If I'm about to go do something (non-photo-centric!) that is itself fun and interesting to me, the camera bag stays put. Otherwise, my brain shifts into a <em>different</em> experience of the moment. It's just as enjoyable, but for completely different reasons. Not to mention: when you're married, it's not always your own moment to live in, if you know what I mean.</p>

<p>Matt-<br>

I know exactly what you mean--in fact it was my wife who wanted the shots of the first bath. And in other settings, ie landscape, my plans to "convey the moment" have often driven my wife nuts!<br>

I guess that in my best works, certain landscape shots, my "future moments" may have been relatively easy (at least for me) to plan to capture, ie. location, season, and time of day, as compared with other types of photography, eg. portraits, animal, etc. that seem to require more patience and sensitivity than I have at times exersized. But interestingly, I seem to do generally ok with photography of (and otherwise with) children (good thing).<br>

Indeed I have often guilty of "flailing", which ultimately is not enjoyable when I see the bad results. And I have always enjoyed the planning required to capture a good image--just have not always been disciplined enough to do it.<br>

So perhaps "living in the moment" shouldn't be a strict chrono-temporal concept that would translate to something akin to living in the *instant*. Maybe oftentimes for photographers, it might be more akin to being absorbed in a current endeavor with the necessary planning and attention required to capture an image representing the "moment". This approach is enjoyable to me, in contrast to unproductive worrying about the future and regretting the past, both of which I don't think represent living in the proverbial moment.<br>

But also, I agree that sometimes you just have to put the camera down--perhaps to get that chrono-temporal moment.</p>

<p>Chip, I have always found that being in the presence of an infant to be an absolute force anchoring you to the present. They only exist there, no past or future for a baby. I am the lead teacher in an Infant room. I also use photography as a means to be present- if I am thinking about something else, I miss a lot of shots. I do not consider it flailing around, rather finding the images that exist everywhere. Folk singer Peter Meyer said "the challenge is not to find a miracle, but to find something that's not."</p>

<p><em>"it is difficult to live in the moment in the presence of constant fussing, diaper changing, etc."</em> <br /> I don't understand that statement. If you are annoyed, frustrated, or whatever emotion you are feeling, why can't you be "in the moment" when it's not a pleasant moment? Let those emotions inform your photography. If you are too busy with the baby to pick up the camera, that's an issue with only having two hands and is not about a failure to be in the moment.<br /> <em>"does photography necessarily cause the photographer to live in the moment"</em> <br /> The act of taking a photograph does not inherently require you to be "in the moment" in any significant way, not any more than you're "in the moment" when you're just killing time. You could be taking a picture of a dent in your car for the insurance company. However, to communicate to others through your art, you need to feel it sincerly.</p>

<p>The idea that there is any choice other than living in the moment is a delusion. </p>

 

<p>I believe the true answer is that the photograph allows you to live in the moment several times. The anticipation of the shot, the developing or post-processing, and the opportunity to re-live it whenever you look at it.<br>

This feeling was brought clear during a long winter of negative scanning. Time and again I would see the image appear, and the "moment" that was captured was again vivid in my mind - made more precious by the family photos of children who are now having their own, or friends and relatives who have passed on.<br>

It matters not if the picture is as simple as single flower, or the wedding of a close friend. I remember the life situations that existed then, which may have much to do with the image that was captured.<br>

As a side note, I could cry at the condition of some of these negatives. I wish all labs would have used the negative holders!</p>

<p>And living with a 2-week old son isn't living in the moment? As noted, you're always living in the moment, it's thinking in the moment that is often lost or forgotten. I think a photographer has to think and feel both in the moment and in the possibilities. While photographing you have to look and see what's there and what's possibility ahead, and while travelling to an assignment you have to live to get there but also think about what's there as you're going, to be mentally ready. Or at least I strive to do, but not often succeed.</p>

<p><em>"If you are annoyed, frustrated, or whatever emotion you are feeling, why can't you be "in the moment" when it's not a pleasant moment?" </em><br>

That is an excellent question of rhetorical value--good point.<br>

<em>"Let those emotions inform your photography"</em><br>

That sounds like a viable approach towards sublimation (a Freudian term) of negative emotion towards constructive photography--I think I'll try that.<br>

<em>"The idea that there is any choice other than living in the moment is a delusion."</em><br>

No. You are interpreting the phrase literally and are missing the connotation, which has already been articulated above. Additionally, social psychologists have long since demonstrated that as people get older they spend smaller proportion of time with what I consider to be "living in the moment," with their attention towards the "here and now."</p>

<p>"No. You are interpreting the phrase literally and are missing the connotation, which has already been articulated above. Additionally, social psychologists have long since demonstrated that as people get older they spend smaller proportion of time with what I consider to be "living in the moment," with their attention towards the "here and now.""</p>

<p>No. Those social psychologists are full of it. The connotation mistakes the finger pointing for the moon.</p>

<p>There is only one moment and this is it. Any attempt to rationalize, or theorize, or pontificate, or obfuscate cannot change that. It can be denied, but it cannot be escaped.</p>

<p>Chip:</p>

<p>Everyone lives "in the moment". That's a given. I currently am sitting at my pc in the office in my house. As a physical object, my body occupies this space during a certain interval of time. Who in the heck knows where my mind is? (And who cares?) The question, rather, has to do with experiencing the moment, in my opinion. </p>

<p>My wife sometimes gets annoyed with me for occasionally appearing to be preoccupied with shooting photographs while I'm with her, and her usual means of chastising me is to say, "Look what you're missing." This statement, to me, is very interesting and provocative. Is holding a camera in front of my face snapping a photograph of a two-week-old baby qualitatively different than just watching the baby crack a smile or try to turn over in the crib? If there is a difference, I'm not sure it's all that significant. I'm "living in the moment", one way or the other. </p>

<p>Where a distinction may arise has to do with modes of experience. If I'm taking a photograph of the baby, I'm experiencing the baby as a photographer. If I'm dear old dad just grooving on my new son, then I'm experiencing the baby as a father. Perhaps Vince's comments made a similar point.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>As relating the art of photography to "a moment" - when I'm shooting a photograph, I see it as <em>freezing that moment in time.</em> It's part of the whole concept. If one is not taking pictures aimed towards a goal of using the picture to sell a thing or a place or a service, then they're probably taking the picture to remember the time, the person, the place, a building, a happening, etc. At the moment that we depress the button to take that picture, we are recording that precise moment in time. <em>"Look, here's that picture I took of Grandfather in front of the Louvre when we went to France together." "Here's that photograph I took</em> <em>of Don Knotts when I met him at the Inverarry Classic Golf Tournament in Ft. Lauderdale when I was a</em> <em>kid." <br /></em>Yes, we freeze that moment in time forever.<br>

Sandra Pinnel </p>

<p>Sandra:</p>

<p>Your points are well put. And, for whatever it's worth, I think that you are correct. Shooting a photograph does freeze a moment. However, whether shooting a photograph is an instance of "living in the moment" is a different issue than "freezing a moment".</p>

<p >Probably I would not say “Living in the moment” but “catching the moment”. The reason why to “catching the moment” is to discover what other people hadn’t see – a new meaning. If you caught the moment but didn’t discover a new meaning it would be not useful. How do you discover a new meaning? Keep a distance! If you are not able to keep a distance you would not be able to discover a new meaning. So even if you “living in the moment” your mind have to keep a “distance”, and once your mind keep a “distance” you would find yourself “free” in a big “mess” situation…</p>

<p>I don't want to be too literal, because doing so could cause me to take the idiomatic expression about not living in the moment for what it is in a straight translation and could lead me to wonder how someone could escape time. We'll leave the notion of escaping time to the Kant scholars among us.</p>

<p>That having been said, I don't think <i>I</i> freeze the moment, I think the photograph does. I experience the moment and create a still image of it. When I photograph, I experience. I don't always experience what the photograph freezes.</p>

<p>Example. I recently did a shoot for a small community. There were several moments out of the few days that were the high-points for me of emotional pitch. For a couple of those, I did not have my camera at the ready and actually wouldn't have wanted to. I wanted to be free of distraction at some special moments. Some of the better photos I took, the ones that express the highest emotional pitch, were actually of what might have seemed at the time to be somewhat mundane moments. But I knew the photographs would be anything but mundane.</p>

<p>I don't think emotions and feelings are transferred from actual moments to photographic stills in a one-to-one correspondence manner. A photograph can freeze a moment and, in doing so, can transcend that moment beyond our wildest expectations.</p>

<p>Fred:</p>

<p>You put what I was trying to say far more eloquently. Thanks.</p>

<p >Fred, </p>

<p >You explain one experience, but didn’t explain that kind experience, the OP named “Living in the moment”, that day by day, every day almost the same experience…</p>

<p><!-- [if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><br>

Enjoying at the moment (living in the moment) is just first step when we are learning. When we are getting in advance, enjoying (or suffering) is after the moment…This enjoying is not you enjoying the moment; this enjoying is after you see your bring enjoyment to other people(viewers)…</p>

 

<p><br />The question has a lot of assumptions hidden within it.<br />Photography is observation by its nature. When you are taking photos you are watching the world and not so much participating as those around you may be.<br />As others have noted- whether you participate or you observe or wander off in your own mind, what you are doing at the moment "is" the moment for you. So of course you are living in your moment and photography may well "be" your form of participation-- as legitimate as any other.<br />But it has been my experience that people who enjoy participation feel that observers are not enjoying life as much as they are- and they say things like "see what you are missing".<br />No matter how good you get with a camera, part of you will always be calculating exposures and focal lengths and compositions when you are photographing, and to that extent you will be doing that rather than what others are doing in the situation. <br />You have to admit that if you are manipulating a camera - you are not looking you child in the eye directly- and you are not holding them-- you are holding a camera instead.<br />You have to come to your own peace with that -- or not.<br />But I don't think that it is a matter of not "living in the moment" so much as what you have chosen to do with your moments.<br>

There are also many forms of photography which have varying degrees of effect on isolating you from the non-photographic activities happening around you.<br />I found that I could not abide the feeling of static isolation that large camera tripod work entailed. For me, physically moving through the world at normal speed- seeing photographs in everything I encounter, and managing to get some of those recorded in passing is more enjoyable. So I use a holster system and travel with a single lens.</p>

<p>Observing the moment. Living the moment. Capturing the moment. Missing the moment. Ignoring, destroying, creating, contriving.... perception is a hell of a drug. Listen to a person playing drums, and maybe the first thing that grabs you it the percussion, the "beat" of actual contact between sticks and skins. Stick around a little longer and it becomes about the space between those moments, and you become aware of rythmn, and if you care to go deeper, polyrythmns..... <br>

I tend to view photography the same way. Well, sometimes. Distraction, laziness, indifference, and doubt will creep in from time to time, but rather than wonder if I am missing the moment, or worry about being prescient enough to capture the moment with my camera, I've come to view these "negative" traits, or moments as that space between beats, or shots. Or something to that effect. <br>

It's been a interesting balance for me, because my job comes with a lot of hazards, so I HAVE to be aware, and safe, as well as productive in my environment, but there is also a creative sense to deal with. " Aesthetic arrest", as Joseph Campbell put it, when I am so captivated by the situation that I have to stop, however briefly, and come to terms with whatever it is I am experiencing, wether it is a majestic landscape, or a destructive wildfire. Luckily I have a camera with me that allows me to try and capture that moment quickly, and continue doing my job safely, so later on I can review and appreciate in a safer environment. <br>

Living in the moment, ultimately, is pretty relative, so even if YOU, or other people feel you may be missing out on the moment because your face is hiding somewhere behind the camera, I say give yourself more space or time and see what that reveals to you instead. Try NOT showing your photos to anyone for a long time and see what they say when present them later. I'll guarantee they will pick up on your rythmn, and not just the beat.<br>

Hope I didn't get too off track here. It's been fun, and thanks</p>

<p>R.Barbosa</p>

<p>i dont mean to bring a debate of any sorts but...<br>

i dont find myself in a certain state of neurosis when i use digital or 35mm...<br>

using medium format (Rz67 wlf), however, i find myself quite immersed in the moment...<br>

but thats me.</p>

<p>Hi Chip,<br>

For me photography is 'living in the moment' with an option to look at the past and relive it a second time:).</p>