Intuition and photography

[AJHingel]

<p>Yes Julie, you can indeed translated it in various ways like all chinese texts. But in Chinese philosophy "substance" is indeed the "fundamental principles" of life (or the "fundamental principles" of Bouddhism or Taoism permits to have access to it), what earlier was mentions the "whole". The "function or "practical application" is more easily accessible as equivalent.<br>

We are getting into complicated concepts that I don't think are needed for what this thread was about: the role of intuition in photography.</p>

<p> </p>

[AJHingel]

 

<p>By the way Julie, the second link you made is one of the best text on the use of the concepts we are discussing if one wants to understand the difference between intuition and intellect and especially the evolution of the Chinese of the terms. The whole objective of that article is to define the differences between the Chinese and the Western approach. Complicated reading and I'm sure of at least one thing: I have not understood it all.</p>

 

[Julie H]

<p>I'd delighted you read it. I thought you might like it but I didn't want to ask you to read it because it's so long. I too found it interesting.</p>

<p>I also have enjoyed thinking about "substance" versus "function" even though it's not quite what we're discussing here. Gave me something to consider on a long, lovely hike through the mountains this afternoon (we're in the midst of fantastic fall leaf colors and wonderful cool weather).</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Julie, it is surely the time for long hikes in nature.<br>

Despite the fact that what we have discussed here was not fully in accordance with the concepts of substance and function as presented in that paper I feel that it has been relevant for photography as practices by each one of us. I have enjoyed it.</p>

 

[AJHingel]

<p>By the way I hope to launch another thread one of these days on another concept conspicuously absent from discussion in this forum, as far as I can detect: the role of <strong>BEAUTY in photography</strong> if others do not take it up meanwhile (in a few days time I'm off for a longer visit to China). The attraction of beauty is surely also based on what happens when someone dicks down in Asian art traditions and philosophy. It disappeared in Europe as something of interest, around 1960 with the arrival of post-modernism. Again a chance of exclamations like : irrelevant, worthless, nonsense and the like.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>"what happens when someone dicks down" -- Anders</p>

<p>LOL. Yes. We do that in this forum (I think you meant "dig"; "<a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dicking+around">dicking around</a>" being an Enlish slang phrase ...)</p>

<p>I will look forward to your thread on Beauty. I admire your courage and tenacity -- and good humor.</p>

<p> Just because I've been thinking about it and have them here before me, I'll leave with a few quotes from Tim Ingold on calligraphy. These are bits and pieces that may or may not make sense:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"... the hand that writes does not cease to draw."<br>

" ... it is not the shapes or outlines of things that they sought to render; the aim was rather to reproduce in their gestures the rhythms and movments of the world."<br>

"... In calligraphy as in dance, the performer concentrates all his energies and sensibilities into a sequence of highly controlled gestures. Both call for the same preparation and attack, but, once begun, are executed swiftly and without any break. In both, too, the entire body is caught up in the action. Though we might think that the calligrapher works with the hand alone, in fact, his manual movements have their source in the muscles of the back and torso, braced by his seating position on the ground, whence they extend through the shoulder and the elbow to the wrist." [in that quote, I am interested in the engagement of the full body as related to intuition (as opposed to "just the mind".]</p>

</blockquote>

<p>On the other hand, and this is where I think photography fails to correlate to dance or calligraphy or "arts of the hand/body":</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"Writing [ingold quotes Ong as suggesting] is like playing the violiin or the organ. ... He or she, as Ong puts it, has to have 'interiorized the technology.' [ ... ] The violin, however, is <em>not</em> a machine. Like singing, which involves no extra-somatic instruments at all, violin playing is an art. The player is no more an operator of her instrument than is the singer an operator of her voice. And just as violin playing differs in this regard from playing the organ, so handwriting differs from typing. The difference lies not in the degree to which a technology has been interiorized, but in the extent to which musical or graphic forms issue directly from the energetic and experienced human subject -- that is, from the player or writer -- rather than being related, by operational principles embedded in the instrument, as output to input."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Those last two sentences are key, "The difference lies not in the degree to which a technology has been interiorized, but in the extent to which musical or graphic forms issue directly from the energetic and experienced human subject -- that is, from the player or writer -- rather than being related, by operational principles embedded in the instrument, as output to input."</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Yes, I dig it Julie, you are right. thanks</p>

[luis_g]

<p>Oh, I thought 'dick down' was quite insightful, but dig down is more like Anders.</p>

<p>____________________________</p>

<p>Singing is unmediated... it all goes through tissue (OK, & sound waves). Playing an instrument is not. Having to work within the strictures of camera/lens (pinholes, scans, photograms, etc) is precisely what makes photography difficult. With the cameras we now have, subverting programs is almost a required skill. The complaints about how easy it is from commercial photographers -- and many artists -- are nothing but whining. More than ever, photography belongs to those that have hearts, eyes and brains.</p>

<p>__________________________</p>

<p>Anders, have a wonderful trip!</p>

<p>____________________________</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Thanks Luis, but I will be along some days and then all depends on the web access where I check in. Difficult to predict ! Anyway, I will be sure to catch as much a possible of what I see and experience, I hope - apart from making planned speeches. I might come back all intuitive and in great need of some intellectual socialization. </p>

[aplumpton]

<p>A pre somnolence thought (....the cat couldn't stay away):</p>

<p>Intuition in my photographic approach to subject matter may not occur regularly, but when it does occur it is simply knowing without discursive thought. or the related process of ratiocination. The philosophical hunch is subjective and I cannot explain why but "I just feel it in my bones", as we used to say. Perhaps it is simply a very rapid reasoning that is not captured by my consciousness. I really don’t care to analyse it further than that. It just happens and is sometimes a windfall (but not often enough, unfortunately).</p>

 

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I was talking to a friend last night and he had an interesting take on intuition. Without giving him context, I asked him what he thought it was. He associated intuition with what's personal, with one's identity. The example he gave was to say that often when a political conversation arises, one of our friends intuitively seems to find a power play in the situation being discussed and he always sides with the underdog he perceives, not just side with the underdog but frame the issue with the assumption that there is an underdog. Often, the rest of us don't view the situation in those terms. He is known for thinking of himself as an underdog, so there is an immediate identification of that for him.</p>

<p>"Intuitive" gets defined somewhat differently from "intution." Dictionary.com's first definition: <em>Based on what one feels to be true without conscious reasoning.</em></p>

<p>So there is a sense of self evidence.</p>

<p>I like this aspect of it, especially in light of my own considerations both for and against the "subjective" nature of art, stuff we've talked about regarding our taste and values, and self consciousness / self awareness.</p>

[AJHingel]

<p><strong>Fred</strong>, glad to see you coming back to this.<br>

I don't think there is a contradiction between what we up till now have attributed to "intuitive versus intellect" and your account of your friends approach to the question. It is indeed the <em>self</em> that sees and seeks. When some would see that as individualistic or self-centered is only if it is interpreted as that<strong> only. </strong><br>

<strong></strong>The belief that intuitive seeing or seeking is important and even essential to consider also in photography is because it is considered to "see" more or differently then what the intellect sees - but it does not see the self, but the "whole" of the item, subject, reality. (I close my eyes and hope for the best...)</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Fred - "</strong>So there is a sense of self evidence."</p>

<p>There are many other definitions. If I wasn't out to hijack the meaning of the word, I might rephrase that into: "So there can be a sense of self evidence".</p>

<p>Why do you think so many people say they leave themselves behind, lose the sense of self, etc? Those quotes are legion. Are all those people deluded? Crazy? Your lessers? Mere Mysterians? Or could they possibly know what you do not -- and apparently cannot imagine?</p>

<p>You, who apparently never leave the state of discursive thought, are telling us what intuition is about? This is like a virgin talking about the mechanics of sex to a bunch of hookers. Yeah, I know philosophers do this all the time, but seriously...</p>

<p>Several posts ago, I remarked: "<strong> </strong> I do not think it possible to leave one self out. Nor is that the aim or a requirement of the intuitive."</p>

<p>What does happen is that the primacy of the self in many people gets deposed during the intuitive experience (No, Julie and Fred, one does not die, go catatonic, or become a zombie, their work does not turn to rot, become anonymous, and life really does go on.) And that should really be experience<em><strong>s</strong></em>. I do not believe there is only one type of intuition, which may account for some of the confusion here.</p>

<p>Some have much more experience with intuitive states than others.</p>

<p>There's little doubt as to the intuitive mental state, in the sense that MRIs repeatedly have shown two distinct areas in the brain, adjacent to those associated with the emotions, become very active when people are engaged in intuitive behavior/thought that do not when engaged in routine discursive thinking and rational problem-solving.</p>

<p>[What <em>was</em> the purpose of that bizarre cryptic anecdote about this underdog-loving 'friend'?]</p>

<p>I wish the nay-sayer(s) here hadn't driven out those who do experience and <em>use </em>the intuitive mode in their photography. People who normally lurk here bobbed up from under the ice, said "yes, this is my experience", and vanished, not feeling welcome to talk about their experiences<em>. <br /></em></p>

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

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Anders, I think since humans are limited to perspective, we (unlike God) never get to see the whole. That's why I find framing things with a camera so human. Humans frame. Photographers frame again.</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Framing things surely, but framing the essential is what is at stake. Mostly the intellect would frame constructs. Intuition would frame - maybe something else....</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Anders, I'm not seeing intellect and intuition competitively. They work in concert. I think humans frame, not intellects or intuitions. Humans frame using both their intellects and intuitions, by necessity, together.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>It is rather obvious I think that intellect is behind intuition or intuitive action, whether it is recognized or not by the photographer. Intuition, which is not a process of ratiocination is nonetheless based upon our prior experiences and knowledge of the world about us, that do not escape our subjective intellectual reception and analysis at some past point.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Arthur and Fred,</p>

<p>The interesting twist with intuition in photography is this (if you haven't already noticed this for yourself). In most philosophical discussions of intuition in mathematics, Chinese art, and so forth, the assumption is that the learning and the evidence are already in hand. All that one is doing is reaching a state of presumed belief or performance that exceeds what the extent of the current evidence (seems to) justify. (One already has the target in mind: a math problem, a Chinese bowl, a piece of calligraphy, a particular dance, or piece of music and so on.)</p>

<p>The twist is that in photography, the realization of evidence and the intuition from that evidence to a target are almost simultaneous. In other words (ignoring technique and talking only about timing of the shutter snap: "the moment") one does not have, in mind, whatever it is about which one will intuit until the moment of intuition. That's the location on which Mr. grumpy Rumplestitskin (aka Luis) is stomping and jumping up and shouting and waving his arms and a pox on him. We're talking about what intuition is; he's into how one "performs" to/with/in it. As if there is no time gap; evidence and realization of target and performance are for all practical purposes (nearly) instantaneous.</p>

<p>And if Luis doesn't like my way of putting it, HE SHOULD HELP ME OUT.</p>

[AJHingel]

 

<p>Fred that is the whole question around here ! Some believe that we have a tendency to make the intellect take control (through the individual of course and based on learning) and that their is something for us to learn from the Asian emphasis of nurturing intuition. That they both work together is agreed upon, I would believe.<br>

Arthur, if you are right in your observation, the Chinese are right in proclaiming that Westerners have lost their capacity of intuitive seeing of the "whole" and that our intellect and intellectual contract have taken over. We therefor only see parts of reality according to their ciew - that I would agree upon without hesitation. The part that can be grasped by the intellect and its categories of reality. <br>

You might have noticed that I actually acknowledge that the way you describe the "seeing" is what I feel is the case for me too. However, I believe the emphasis on intuition as a largely under-emphazised artisitic faculty as done by Leach, is a correct diagnostics when it comes to photography also as it is according to him for pottery makers - in the West. For me the main question is not whether my intellect or intuition are at work, because both are surely, but how I as photographer can reinforce the intuitive seeing and seeking. </p>

<p>This is written before Julie's call for help !!</p>

 

[AJHingel]

<p>By the way I almost don't want to mention it, but for me, and surely for me only! I'm back at the discussion on "essence" which became somewhat derailed by the occidental deadweight of philosophy. <br>

Just try to ignore it. I did not write it...</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>I guess if one can successfully photograph intuitively, elucidating the essence of a place through images may become more attainable. But I am not convinced that this is not a nice little anti-occidentophilosophical land mine planted by friend Anders, while he is happily away interacting with the oriental mind.</p>

<p>Intellectual knowledge and reasoning may be contributory to providing some of the conditions in the mind of the photographer for his or her intuitive behaviour, but the rapidity and essentially unconscious execution of that behaviour prohibits its discursive application as a part of an intuitive approach. I am not sure that this is what Julie refers to as the instantaneous action (in other words) and perhaps others are referring to (as Fred suggests by the definition of intuitive behaviour – “Based on what one feels to be true without conscious reasoning”) as the combination of intellect and intuition that is part of the intuitive behaviour, but I would welcome the i dotting or correction if it is not.</p>

<p>Intuition and the whole versus the self? Anders, does it really need to be either-or?</p>

 

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Instantaneous action, the moment, and intuition . . .</p>

<p>Often the moment isn't what it is when the snap is taken. The moment is what it becomes via the photograph or via looking back. It is in how I choose what photograph to work on rather than trash, how I choose to remember the moment, and how I recast the moment by creating a photo. I doubt there's a singular moment of performance. The snap is a moment of action. The action gets defined and contextualized over and through many moments in time.</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Arthur make no mistake about it, as the Americans are saying so often, I have no intention of planting any anti-something anywhere and especially not in the garden of this forum. It is surely not anti-occidental this small thread - neither in it's intention, nor in its content. I firmly and very seriously believe in the creative force of cross-cultural studies (don't smile - I'm dead serious!). What I referred to in this thread is a more than thousand years philosophical tradition, that has "produced" art (like the bowls of the Song dynasty) which are unique in the history of mankind. it covers art from the Chinese, Indean, Japanese, Korean cultures. One of the basic principles of that artistic tradition is in fact the role of "intuition". The Far-East-Asian philosophies and religions are marked by the ambition for mankind to be able to grasp the whole of universe (reality) and not only parts. (I hope I still have my feet on the ground!).</p>

<p>If Arthur goes back to the very start of the tread he would notice that Leach actually came back from China with the message of the importance of "intuition" in the making of pottery and you would also notice that I mentioned that these "Leach-principles" of pottery making are used ever since they were published as a source of inspiration and learning in the West. No anti-occidental conspiracy going on. There is, as mentioned, a very personal critical eye on myself in the story however, and my own photographical approach and practice.</p>

<p> I believe it is right that our intellectual construct perceive only parts of the "whole" (whatever that is, but maybe surely more "real" than parts of it). That's indeed the role of whatever we have learned. To be able to get some order out of the chaos of reality around us making it manageable, controllable and functional and even in case explainable. It categorizes and make hierarchies of more or less important parts of that reality. Seeing, and making photography, with our intellect only (which is surely not possible, but could be considered just to facilitate our discussion - a Weberian ideal-type")) can only be partial because our intellect can never grasp the complexity of any scene in full. I would not think that anyone could disagree on this (I know I'm wrong!).</p>

<p>Intuition is here an approach to seeing reality where our preconceived intellectual constructs about what we see, is washed away (again a Weberian "ideal-type") You could imagine the latter approach to be possible when making something with your hands (pottery) or making music - but again the intellect will always have an eye open even in these cases. In photography it is somewhat more difficult to perceive what "intuition- free" or "intellect-free" photography would be (a construct surely!) but that intuition adds to what the intellect can deliver when seeing and seeking seems to me to be obvious. For me the question has never been to fight for intuition and demonize the intellect but to advance on the question of: how we can learn from Asian philosophy and arts and reinforce the intuitive dimension (in tandem with the intellect) in artistic expressions such as photography. <br>

You get a candy at the entrance for each contradiction you can find in these few linest.</p>

[jtk]

<p>I think "Asian" philosophies and arts are being wildly misrepresented. Sure, Westerners like to imagine flashes of enlightenment that must go on in Yoda-like oriental skulls, but that is an outright goofy idea.<br /><br />Consider the highly detailed landscape paintings of China. Consider fine Chinese ceramics ("China") or carved jade or carpentry. Consider classical Chinese music and theatre. Consider Chinese novels that were written before many Westerners even visited.<br /><br />Consider the perfection of Japanese lacquer bowls or infinitely subtle, year-in-making baskets. Consider Japanese multi-block wood-block printing (eg Hiroshige and his peers). Consider kimono fabric weaving. Consider Japanes Noh plays.<br /><br />Raku' pots inherently involve an instant of accident, but a long process in which some version of perfection is attempted in order for the accident to make its point. And in any case, the accident is exactly that, it's not intuitive. It is allowed or done by the potter, and it's relatively artless.<br />Raku' is associated with Zen...and Zen famously entails satori, moments of enlightenment...but those moments are preceded by long study and meditation...rather than "intuitive" those moments have been preceded by many failures, in which the Zen master sometimes whacked the student with a stick (a kwat).<br /><br />We've all watched Japanese brush painting. Films of Pablo Picasso at work show him just as fast and dynamic. His interests were reportedly more African than Asian, fwiw. I think Spain qualified as part of Europe even back then.</p>

<p> </p>

[jtk]

<p><a href="http://www.textilearts.com/bamboo/">http://www.textilearts.com/bamboo/</a></p>

<p><a href="http://www.chiangmai-chiangrai.com/celadon_ceramics.html">http://www.chiangmai-chiangrai.com/celadon_ceramics.html</a></p>

<p><a href="