Stimulus

<p>Sometimes the "energy of activation" (to loosely apply from science a common kinetics and thermodynamics term) that we have to supply before we assemble a photo kit and go out to photograph is very small (we do it readily), and sometimes it is quite large. The driving force of the desire to photograph something is often a "stimulus" or some "element of motivation" that we engage or feel. Such stimulae can also be felt in the field during a photo shoot.</p>

<p>One of the questions in Fred Goldsmith's recent opening post on "Transcendence and Transformation" was that of "Why do you photograph something in addition to or instead of sending others to see it "in person" themselves?" Although not directly related to the subject of "stimulus" in the context of photographing something or somewhere, Fred's pertinent question made me think of the type of personal incentives that photographers and other artists might have in creating an image of what they see and wish to interpret.</p>

<p>In my own case, one of the stimuluses (stimulae, if you will) for my own work is that of communication. This sounds somewhat general, but in the more restricted sense it means to me the stimulus or motivation to provide an image that will provoke a response in myself and especially in the viewer. Perhaps I may never write down anything of significance in my lifetime for readers, but there is a chance that I may be able to communicate some ideas or values to others via my images that may even outlive my ability to do that in a direct living manner through speech. A sculptor friend does this through his stone works, which have the added advantage of permanence. In my own case, permanence is of lesser importance, while that of simply touching the minds of a few contemporaries is sufficient. My communication often targets some strong sentiment or value, whether in enchantment or disenchantment with what I feel about he subject photographed.</p>

<p>Other than communication, another stimulus for me is that of sensuality, a strong attraction to the sensual effects of colour, form, light, and the subject itself, that drives me to reproduce something in a manner that accords with my own visual fantasy, sentiments and passions. My personal response is no doubt common to many others, and the images prompted by that stimulus may well be enjoyed by other viewers, which in itself is a stimulus.</p>

<p>The curiosity about a subject and its full visual and interpretive exploration, combined with my feelings about it, is another stimulus that drives me to do photo projects. Sometimes that works and often not, but the reward can be a single powerful image if not a series of interrelated images.</p>

<p>There are other stumulae inherent in my attitude to and application of photography, which I am still thinking about, but I would be happy to hear about those elements of motivation or stimulae that incite others to photograph.</p>

<p>It would appear that the human beings are social creatures. There is a need to interact. The interaction requires a constant flow of information for relationships to be developed. In time, there are other bonds that transcend the need to keep the relationships stimulating, however, it is that need to stimulate that often make us wanting to share the vision. Very few of us attain that yogic height where knowing that something beautiful exists is sufficient, without feeling the need to tell the whole world about it.</p>

<p>I like to think of photo projects as a form of discovery.</p>

<p>Most of the people actually are interested in people. If this interest is allowed to develop one usually discover the only one can be studied "in deep" is one himself which, curiously enough, is the one one is mostly interested in. In this line of pursuit photography provide substantial record material for what many call a "private investigation".</p>

<p>Another one is the wish for aesthetic entertainment or the need for useful illustration. Some do feel frustrated by the fact of the time passing by irrevocably and photography can provide an illusion of it being stopped, even beheld.</p>

<p>There are exciting superstitions and "feel good" thing about playing with expensive tigh-tech gadgets. Otherwise anything makes one unable to sit still.</p>

<p>Though the question can be asked and answered many ways, my original intention with the question was less about generic motivations for taking photographs and more tied to the actual things we photograph. Why do we photograph this thing instead of just pointing it out to other people? Though it's interesting to hear all possible takes on the question, I'll try to answer from the standpoint I had been thinking.</p>

<p>My answer starts with wanting to look at things in the world somehow differently. I want to see things not always how they are, but how the could be. By photographing it, I can personalize it, make it mine. Sending someone to see it sends the energy away from me. Showing it to them my way maintains a kind of three-way connection . . . me . . . you . . . object.</p>

<p>It strikes me that I rarely take pictures of extraordinary or "beautiful" things. Those I'd rather you see in person and for yourself. A lot of what I photograph seems to want to have perspective and vision added to it. What we might otherwise not notice, perhaps because it's not extraordinary, we pay attention to when we add light and shadow and stillness and focus and isolation by framing . . . when we take away periphery and matters extraneous and some amount of context and some dimension and even smells, sounds, and touch . . . </p>

<p>It is the difference, for example, between the woman and the viewing of the woman in the photograph <em>Migrant Mother</em>, as in the discussion going on in the objectification thread. Photographs bring things to the table that the real-life situation may not address in such a focused way. Strangely, photographs can personalize and make intimate a situation that could otherwise be kept at quite some distance.</p>

<p><strong>Starvy, Ilia, </strong></p>

<p>I guess that humans are attracted to photographing humans because we are attracted to our situation in and relationship to this world, in which our behaviour is fascinating to us, but in a world which would exist quite well without us. As Starvy suggest, the stimulae to photograph other humans can be replaced by other stimulae in regard to those interactions. As Ilia suggest, we often photograph people to simply understand ourselves, although I do think that the stimulus for interacting also leads us to understand others, at least to some personally biased extent.</p>

<p><strong>Jon, Fred,</strong></p>

<p>As Jon suggests, and Fred elaborates in his own manner, we are motivated to photograph because we are "explorers" of life. I think that it is often difficult to separate the motivation or stimulus for making photographs (a generic stimulus, or more likely several generic, stimulae) from that or those related to a certain subject or thing photographed at any one time. They are often of the same vine.</p>

<p>Why we choose to photograph inevitably gets intertwined with the stimulae related to our reactions to a particular subject. They can be the same, or different, but I believe we have inherent individual stimulae that more often affect how we treat (recreate) a subject. In my own case, I believe they are based on my personal characteristics, values, hang-ups, fantasies, and other characteristics that define me as an individual. I cannot really separate them from the stimulae acting on me in regard to a particular thing or subject I am photographing. Stimulae and motivation are parameters of a response to the question "why do I photograph?"</p>

<p>I absolutely concur with what Fred says about adding perspective and vision to a subject, in seeing things in our own way - not as they are, but as (we feel or wish) they should be. For me that is the poetry I strive for and can achieve in some of my photographs. This exploration of a subject is what I previously described as decomposing (or deconstructing) an image and reconstructing (recreating) it in our own manner. It is intimately related to me as a photographer, but like a poem I would like to communicate it to others. We are all performers in some way, even if the reward of seeing things differently is mainly done for ourselves and is often a confirming reflection of who we are, or who we think we are.</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Why do we photograph this thing instead of just pointing it out to other people?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Firstly, because they're not there. One of the reasons I began carrying a camera around was to show people what I'd seen on my long walks across moors and mountains. Places they would never go. But also, the thing I photograph might be very ephemeral, they could go to the same place next week and it won't be there, and possibly never will be.<br>

Secondly, even if they stood on the same spot at the same time, they probably wouldn't see what I saw.<br>

Thirdly, I'm looking through a camera lens, and with a little experience, one learns to use the lens to find or create an image which isn't really visible to the naked eye. It may be selectivity, or optical distortion, or magnification, but with this tool you can see and explore things that most people can't.</p>

<p>Somewhere in the "thirdly" paragraph is the matter of self exploration and expression. I suppose communication is the basic drive, or it was in the beginning, but it leads on to that</p>

<blockquote>

<p>curiosity about a subject and its full visual and interpretive exploration, combined with my feelings about it</p>

</blockquote>

<p>described in the OP.</p>

<p><strong>"this thing"</strong> that I photograph is rarely near enough to anybody to point the subject out. In general I hope to be alert for the unusual, which does mean I want to share.</p>

<p><strong>Photography isn't a solopsistic activity for me.</strong></p>

<p>The distinction between photograph and <strong>photograph-of </strong>is an understanding to which I was introduced by Minor White's people. Seems obvious in retrospect...but I'm a print-making photographer, which encourages that perspective.</p>

<p>Perhaps inevitably, the minority of my photos that are people-pictures are almost always "of" in the sense that I usually make them specifically for the subjects, or for people who know the subjects.</p>

<p><strong>Connecting photograph and photograph-of </strong>I increasingly include commentary with prints. People who appreciate my photos are usually perceptive enough without, but I enjoy writing the additional layer. It's fine for viewers to ask or at least wonder about about the subjects: I don't need the control that Minor White students insisted upon for print viewing, but I learned from the rigor they demanded.</p>

<p>This may indirectly respond to Arthur's excellent "stimulus" question :-)</p>

<p><strong>John</strong>,</p>

<p>perhaps Atta Kim, who respected White's thoughts (originally somewhat solopsistic, his acknowledged "folly" of mirror of himself, but eventually having thoughts contrary to that) resumed his own stimulus in his statement:</p>

<p>"We need a new paradigm of photography. . . . We have tended to pay attention only to the photographed object itself, not to its background. However, I want to convey not only the object itself but also the story behind it through my photographs. That is the essence of my work. I always think of how I can convey the qualities of abstraction and inner energy that photography can suggest so effectively.” <br /> —Atta Kim, from Atta Kim: ON-AIR 2</p>

<p>It is said that the photographic output of Minor White and Atta Kim were not similar, although their approaches may be. White’s work was textural, eventually spiritual - small, black-and-white prints of isolated natural details full of symbolic portent, while contemporary Korean photographer Kim’s recent work consists of large-scale color prints, primarily urban landscapes, or staged processes such as melting ice. Yet Kim has seemingly picked up where White left off philosophically, finding influence in G.I. Gurdjieff (Zen philosophy) and the sense that a true consciousness of the world and its twin qualities of beauty and impermanence can best be attained through the lens of the camera. He is said to be motivated by the larger questions of human consciousness: What is the nature of our collective existence? How are we different—are we different one from the other? What will become of us or of ourselves and of our efforts to shape the world around us?</p>

<p>He is following I think the path that differentiates "photograph" and "photograph of" that you mention, while being "stimulated" by his concept of world consciousness, of both beauty and impermanence in co-existence.</p>

<p>Atta Kim: <a href="http://www.asianewsnet.net/news.php?id=4133&sec=8">http://www.asianewsnet.net/news.php?id=4133&sec=8</a></p>

<p>Arthur, thanks for bringing <strong>Atta Kim</strong> to this Forum. I'd not known of him previously (don't follow Aperture).</p>

<p>Food for thought. Have you seen his prints? I'd love to. </p>

<p>As you know, I think identifying oneself as "an artist" is unnecessary at best..."photographer" or "painter" or "dancer" seems to me to be <em>less pompous and seems intended to point more to evidence in the work, less to one's assertions</em>...but according to that asiannewsnet article, <em>Kim is pursuing something more ephemeral than photography and has obviously been marketing himself</em> for a long time (not a bad thing).</p>

<p>Incidentally, I believe G.I. Gurdjieff wasn't a Zen philosopher as he addressed teachable "exoteric" (external matters and truths) rather than the "esoteric" (more internal-individual-perceptual). Some of Minor White's students sat za-Zen (eg at San Francisco Zen Center), others found Gurdjieff-Ouspensky more appropriate (eg the Nyland Group in San Francisco and, later, Sonoma County where some moved). I believe it's correct to say that the Gurdjieff students ceased making photographs, awhile the Zen practitioners continued. I don't have any theories about how these issues relate to White's personal photographic path, except that some say he was more devoted to teaching photographic teachers than in teaching photographers or even photography "itself."</p>

<p> My own Minor White teacher, Conrad Forbes was Gurdjieff-affiliated...and his involvement with photography was directly opposite what I claimed above about the influence of Gurdjieff. Conrad had become physically unable to pursue these talky issues in mid-30s, losing verbal fluency, frequently suffering paralysis (Huntington's Chorea..per Muhammed Ali), but he did produce a wrenching slide and print exhibit in his last months : "A Scream From Within." </p>

<p>I had the opportunity to spend some time with two Gurdjieff groups but found their acceptance of authority incompatible with my own existential, life-as-risk-embracing orientation.</p>

<p>John,</p>

<p>I just recently discovered Kim while reading up on Minor White. From reading your experience of the philosophical and photography movements in California there is clearly much more reading I need to do. You are fortunate to have had the exposure to the teachings of Forbes and connection to the ideas of White and others. As a so-called "self-made" photographer, as many others, the lack of formal photography education is something I am always trying to overcome, often unsystematically, to increase my understanding of the medium, the ideas more than the technique. The stimulus for Kim's approach attracted my attention, but I might have mentioned various other photographers as well. I have not seen his work yet, but would like to at some point.</p>

<p>A few of Kim's images can be found in the article "Things for what else they are" by Lesley Martin of Aperture: http://www.hatjecantz.de/leseproben/9783775723756_06.pdf. I am not sure that photographing New York or Paris street scenes by 8 hour time lapse photography really convinces in terms of Kim's desire and stimulus to depict consciousness of the world, although the people-less Atget type images (my analogy) of empty streets (all moving objects having been seen by the camera but unrecorded on film or sensor) do make one think - who and what has passed here during the 8 hour exposure and where are they now?</p>

<p>A good photographer benefits from being a good marketer of his work. Obviously, Kim is very good at both and has much ambition. He does offer good advice in his manifest comment, in the text of the article you cited:</p>

<p>"Every individual is a big energy ball with great potential. You can't imagine how great each one of us is. It simply depends on how much you can express what you've got."</p>

<p>Which brings us back to the question of motivation or stimulus of the photographer.</p>

<p> </p>

<p><em>" .. the question of motivation or stimulus of the photographer." -- Arthur P</em><br>

<em> </em><br>

Arthur, I don't know anything about "the photographer."</p>

<p>I, however, am motivated by desire to share. Perhaps that's a residual tribal urge: tribal people are/were obliged to share. But then there's also <strong>the importance and human pleasure in story-telling</strong>. People who can't or won't tell stories, particularly about their own families and life experiences, are typically treated as outsiders, mistrusted for good reason IMO.</p>

<p>I think my motivations are traditional (including sharing) more than philosophic: my family found photography worthwhile-enough to have many very fine portraits made, starting shortly after California's goldrush. Several became photo-enthusiasts before turn-of-century (I have scanned/printed many of their negs and prints, and have the individual Kodaks that appear to have made them). My parents both photographed fairly seriously from their respective angles...my mother intentionally made photos as art, my father told visual stories ( slide shows).</p>

<p>My mother's motives were self-expressive. An insecure girl, she was fortunate to attend Castlemont High School in Oakland, CA where there was a fine crafts and design (notan-like) program in the thirties (California Craft Revival). My father's motives clearly had to do with his curiosity and his awkwardness in speech..but I'm certain he had a desire to share that's similar to mine.</p>

<p><em> </em><br>

<em> </em></p>

 

<p>John, thanks. I think that stimulus fits into that of the desire to communicate with others, to share ideas or experiences. A worthwhile motivation, to my mind.</p>

<blockquote>

<p> The driving force of the desire to photograph something is often a "stimulus" or some "element of motivation" that we engage or feel. Such stimulae can also be felt in the field during a photo shoot.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The photograph contains both stimulus and response, the former being <em>in</em> the photograph and the latter being <em>the</em> photograph. But the desire or driving force <em>to photograph</em> is for me more a *response* with everything outside that desire - the world - being its stimulus.</p>

<p>A nuance, between *photograph* and *to photograph* in regard to stimulus ( - response ), although I can see the point in the act of photographing itself being the stimulus rather than the response...</p>

<p>But where does that leave the photograph ?</p>

<p> </p>

<p>"The photograph contains both stimulus and response.....But the desire or driving force <em>to photograph</em> is for me more a *response* with everything outside that desire - the world - being its stimulus." (Phylo)</p>

<p>Phylo, your point is well-taken but does it address your personal motivation? If you consider the world as being the stimulus and you are there to simply respond to something, as you say, do you consider that as somehow being more passive than that of a particular stimulus or motivation of the photographer to undertake a particular act of creation? The latter for me is a more active engagement, whatever the particular nature of the stimulus that motivates the photographer to seek out and to respond to what he is seeing. The photograph may be one form of response, but for me the stimulus is outside the photograph and is what drives the photographer.</p>

<p>I hope that we will witness many different stimulae or elements of motivation that are important to different photographers, as those should relate somewhat to their own philosophy of photography as a medium of expression. As a photographer, I am curious how you and others see that.<br /> <br /></p>

<blockquote>

<p>Phylo, your point is well-taken but does it address your personal motivation? If you consider the world as being the stimulus and you are there to simply respond to something, as you say, do you consider that as somehow being more passive than that of a particular stimulus or motivation of the photographer to undertake a particular act of creation?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't think at all that the response is simple or passive, it may be hard, involve thought and be in constant flux, not unlike the stimulus evoking it. It's true that the stimulus may come from the internal ( *mind* ) as much as the external ( *world* ), but as a photographer I'm <em>in the world</em>, and must respond to it ( !! click !! ) one way or another.<br /> Choosing to respond one way, rather than the other, is perhaps my stimulus, but which I can't quite pinpoint other than pointing to its object : the photograph.<br>

<br /> Stimulus < photograph > Response. A strange loop.</p>

<p>External as opposed to internal. It isn't always either-or, I believe, but often a combination of the two.</p>

<p>Arthur,<br>

At the risk of being frightingly simple, for me a large stimulus is in hoping the next picture will actually be what I hoped for... That hope makes me go out, and from there on, it's just a sponge of impressions.<br>

I do not plan shots (or shoots), I do not try to organise things in a way that suits my photographic idea. I just go and see what crosses my path. So, I feel what Phylo states as the world being stimulus and responding to that is also what drives me to that next photo.<br>

It's indeed not an either/or; that world is as much internal as external since it's not only the world as such, but also one's view on it and feel for it that defines the photo.</p>

<p>Wouter and Phylo -</p>

<p>I respect your approach to photography and on occasion also go out as well without planning my shots, taking all sorts of freedoms with unusual compositions and viewpoints, or simply letting the subject talk to me and then creating my own perception of it (and, even then, oftimes with the assistance of some pre-existing stimulus or motivation).</p>

<p>However, I am more than surprised at this early point of the discussion to learn that there are apparently few who react to a recognisable stimulus or motivation in creating images, and accordingly plan or orient to some extent the nature of their image making.</p>

<p>Perhaps the intellectualising of the reasons we photograph and why we choose our artistic approaches is not very popular or common, although I also assume that some photographers actually do consider their work as springing from conscious stimulae and motivations that are invoked by them or work to help them to create their particular form of art.</p>

<p>Possibly we deny, or ignore, or are not even aware of their presence (particularly those of a psychological nature?).</p>

<p>A case in point: A good friend once claimed that his sculptures came from the way the stone presented itself to him as he commenced the work, with the effect of as yet unseen veins in the rock eventually dictating his work. While this is true to some extent, no doubt, I later saw in his study a number of detailed sketches he had prepared prior to carving each stone. The sketches had a common thrust and an angularity that I could only later acquaint to the very difficult personal situation (near poverty) that he was experiencing in his life at that time. A stimulus in his work? Probably so. Later, his omnipresent love of mathematics was made evident in entirely different sculptures, which each possessed an uncanny equilibrium of various smooth curves and surfaces. Not sure mathematics was at the root of those creations, but clearly a different stimulus was acting on him as he prepared to undertake those works.</p>

<p><em>"... surprised at this early point of the discussion to learn that there are apparently few who react to a recognisable stimulus or motivation in creating images, and accordingly plan or orient to some extent the nature of their image making."</em> ....Arthur P</p>

<p>Arthur, you seem surprised that many photographers are complex, widely experienced, intentional human beings... as opposed to psychology lab rats (B.F. Skinner, stimulus, response etc). Me too, when I come across someone actively creating a body of work, not simply wandering and assuming that whatever he clicks is a <em>photograph.</em></p>

<p>That someone with a Leica admires Frank, HCB et al and aspires to emulate does not by itself lead to more than <em>exposures.</em> Click. Click.</p>

<p>Your question seems to address "photograph" less than a mechanical act because it speaks of simplest "reactions" (stimulus/response). Isn't there a difference between <strong>"exposure"</strong> and "photograph?"</p>

<p><strong>Think about "catalysts." </strong>Catalysts are necessary for some processes to occur, but they don't actually take part. Perhaps awareness of the commitment of an Olympic gold medalist or novelist or perfect plumber catalyzes the work of a dedicated photographer?</p>

<p> </p>

<p>John,</p>

<p>I am thinking more of what motivates or stimulates the photographer (not a companion catalyst, or even the response to the motivation) prior to actually making the photograph: What drives you to make the type of photos you do? Is it internal to you, or not (something external)?</p>

<p>If the photographer is widely experienced and intentional, he or she should have little trouble in realising what stimulae or elements of motivation are important for him. I do not think that all these will be similar, far from that. That is part of the interest in knowing what drives each of us. </p>

<p><strong>Arthur</strong>, when looking at my motivations in a wider sense, there are the very foundational ones driving my body of work and there are ones tied to individual photographs. My work overall is motivated by a desire to genuinely look at my own aging and to look intimately at the aging of those around me. I do that by accepting the sensuality and sexuality around me that occurs not in the stereotypical fashion of Hollywood and Madison Avenue but rather in unique, living, breathing human beings. I am also motivated by the idea that our bodies are a significant part of ourselves, a physical presence that has long been derided by religion and culture in favor of essences and souls. I don't discount what people mean by "essence" and "soul" but I also don't discount the ability of the body to communicate and express through gesture and facial articulation.</p>

<p>This motivation operates as a backdrop to more individual motivations related to each photograph. Sometimes, I am motivated by a particular subject. A couple of guys I work with have such expressive faces and bodies, are so willing, so open, and so unique -- also uniquely photogenic -- that I simply want to explore with them, lots of things, and also explore them visually. Others who've been willing to pose are not as expressive in themselves and I seek situations (lighting, environments, etc.) that can express probably more of my own vision on what can be made out of a camera and a person as subject. I am very often directly motivated to make a photograph when I can suggest that life and/or the world is theater. I am drawn to creating genuine yet staged looks and find myself responding either to being able to create such a look or find one and present my take on it. Sometimes, my motivation will be something very simple like I see lighting I like and then build an idea and a photo around that in order to "capture" its significance.</p>

<p>I don't minimize why I also take snapshots: to practice (!), to preserve family and friend memories, and to document in my own way places I've visited, vacation pictures.</p>

<p><em>"I am thinking more of what motivates or stimulates the photographer..." </em>... Arthur P</p>

<p><strong>Arthur, there is no such thing as "the photographer." </strong></p>

<p>See Fred's comments, for example. He's <em>many photographers</em>, as are most of us. Taking that further, <em>none of us are just one person. </em><strong>We all have many motivations.</strong> To the extent that we respond to stimulae, the stimulae are beyond complex.</p>

<p>Your stimulus/response model has been owned by behavioral psychologists since Charles Watson and B.F. Skinner (Google). Even those guys, who reduced everything theoretically to the sort of model you're attempting, recognized that stimulus/response in humans is a <em>far from adequate way </em>to understand much of human activity.</p>

<p>I doubt there's any significant photography that's done on a stimulus/response basis, though some claim that's what they do in "street." Some make photographs, others just make exposures. This being a "philosophy" discussion, valuation as to "significance," including understanding of what constitutes "photograph" is inherently part of what some of us do (others are deconstructionists, some of whom may be photographers).</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I erred. It's John B. Watson, not Charles.<br>

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Watson">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Watson</a></p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James"> </a></p>