I am Spirit, formless and free;

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Series also can provide changes to context, even suggesting a context where one didn't previously exist.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>David, I wanted to respond to your post, much of which I agree with. But a few things to consider. When we're discussing photography, we may not always be talking about creativity. Sometimes, we could just be talking about documenting, in which case the subject may take primacy over creativity. There may, in fact, be instances where the best mode of documentary (if it's meant to reach people easily) might be to travel, as Allen said, paths that have been traveled before. Certain mechanisms for communication have worked before and there's no reason they shouldn't be adopted. That's not to say new documentarians won't also try to develop new styles or new looks, but I don't know that that will be of primary concern to many of them. It will be what information can be conveyed and a degree of authenticity that will often provide for a good documentary photo or series.</p>

<p>Also, while I do agree agree and appreciate much of what you said, I can't let the statement go that "perception is reality for each of us." I do agree that it evolves for all of us. But I don't think perception is reality for anyone. It is <em>a</em> reality, to be sure. But there is a shared reality that goes well beyond each of our perceptions. There are plenty of misperceptions that do not hit on the reality of a situation or that lack a connection to the world.</p>

[Supriyo]

To summarize my understanding of Julie's claim about lack of influence, Julie thinks that the fragmented elements of her

scene can come together in only one way, and that "one" way is solely dictated by the scene elements, not by her, hence

she cannot exert any influence over the finished scene. My take is, the elements can come together in more than one

way, or in none of the ways in some cases. Once Julie finds the first solution that works, she likes it and sticks to it,

without looking further. This is what we call "trapped in a local minima", but there can be other solutions. Also, when she

finds a solution that works, it implicitly means that it works for "her", which is associated with her persona. What works for

her may not work for everybody. However I understand this is how she works, and her motivation in her work comes from

her personal faith and beliefs. So I will leave it at that. It would be counterproductive to hammer down my logic on her,

debating is OK.

 

I cannot subscribe to the statement that a single image is static, and a sequence of images dynamic, when stated in an

absolute sense. It depends on the context. A single image can be very dynamic, while a sequence of images can be

shallow. I agree with Phil what he said about "glue". Also I want to point out that a sequence can be either a time

sequence, or spatio-temporal. Hence the glue would also be anticipation of what happens next, like the bridge between

adjacent chapters in a fiction. How much of the glue is order/structure vs how much of it is anticipation will depend on the

sequence.

[Tim_Lookingbill]

 

<blockquote>

 

<p>Is our photography a spirit , formless and free or a structure based on paths others have walked before? <br /> It is an endless path that we walk, mapped and given to us, to forever tread.?</p>

 

</blockquote>

<h2> </h2>

<blockquote>

<p>" Are blind people spiritless? What path do they walk since they can't photograph or even see to record their world around them? Can they still be curious? Ha! There's the connection! They can!" Tim.<br>

Why would they be spiritless? eye sight is just one sense among others. Do you need eyes to feel the wind?<br>

" The awake and wondering eye of curiosity is inextricably tied to photography". Tim.<br>

Indeed.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Wow! This thread took off. Wish I'ld been around to keep up.</p>

<p>Allen, curiosity about the world around us AND what it will look like photograph I think is the real driving force behind the freedom associated with photography. Curiosity is the spirit. It was behind the point I made about blind people. I just penned it more as a rhetorical line of questioning and as a reference that is out of the context of photography for comparison. </p>

<p>I still get a kick looking at anything in my world and wonder what it would look like photographed because I've come to realize it will change my perception and feeling of it that may or may not have been their when I first saw it.</p>

<p>I've photographed long enough now to become aware of this new freedom of looking at my world in addition to the freedom of my wandering eye that now no longer judges if something will or will not look compelling photographed. </p>

 

[DavidTriplett]

<p>Fred; Two responses - First, I was speaking of creativity appearing to be the core subject of <em> this</em> particular conversation, that is all. Second, one individual's perception is that person's reality, regardless what any of the rest of us might see or believe, or what mathematical truth might hold sway. Sometimes perception on the part of a closed or diseased mind can be very different from what you or I would say is reality. Nevertheless, that is the perceived reality for that individual. I'm sure we both know persons who suffer from mental illness, a TBI, or perhaps just puberty. Their perceptions are frequently skewed, twisted, or incomplete, yet that is the the reality they respond to. It has been a revelation to try and understand the world as my teenage daughters see it, yet a virtual impossibility to change their minds about it in any given moment. As they have grown, matured, and added experiences, their views of the world have changed and evolved, along with my own, and now we see eye-to-eye on far more than we used to. I like to see myself as an educated, scientific, creative, and rational man, who happens to be married to a nuclear physicist. I truly can and do appreciate the reality of the physical, mathematical world. Even in my own case, that reality is bounded and colored by the breadth and depth of my own perception, and so it must be for all of us. One of our best features, if we choose to do it, is our ability as human beings to learn and to grow, thereby expanding and clarifying our perceptions, approximating our perceptions to truth.</p>

[albert_richardson1]

<p>This reminds me of the "determinism vs. free will" debate in an intro to philosophy class. If everything is determined by what goes on before then where does complexity come from? How would anything ever occur for the very first time? On the other hand, if formless random free will is where the truth lies, then there would be no reason for anything to have continuity and consistency.</p>

<p>I suppose Aristotle should have had a camera. This thread seems to be a flimsy pretense for sneaking a freshman debate about extremes, neither of which can be completely correct, into a forum where one would think photography would be most comfortable. </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>David, the problem with equating perception with reality is this. If I'm under the influence or I'm a child who's so-called reality is my perception, then if my perception is skewed to where the edge of a cliff looks farther off than it REALLY is, I may well fall off the cliff. I understand you when you say the reality for that person at that moment is that the cliff is farther off, but a harsher reality (the physical reality, as you call it), that the cliff is closer than it appears to my perception, kind of trumps the perceptive reality when it comes to certain matters. Reality is as often <em>known</em> as it is perceived. I perceive depth in a photo but the reality is it's a two-dimensional representation. I do, as a matter of fact, know many people with mental illness and a lot of time, when they're being cared for in a loving way, in order to protect them and just help them with survival, their perceptions have to be dealt with by people who know how false and therefore dangerous a reality those perceptions are creating. My nephew may not perceive the dangers of crossing a road without looking for oncoming cars. The reality is, it's dangerous to cross the road without looking for oncoming cars. Parents have to almost constantly intervene with their children because the reality of situations is very different from their very young children's perceptions. A teenager may perceive that ingesting a whole bunch of drugs they've received from strangers is perfectly fine. A good parent will step in, if they can, because they are better acquainted with the realities of teenagers taking drugs.</p>

[DavidTriplett]

<p>Fred; Thank you for reinforcing my point. I think we are on exactly the same plane regarding perception versus objective reality. To further expand: I, as is common with men, have a mild color blindness in the red portion of the visible spectrum. I will never perceive red exactly the same as my wife, or many other people. The reality of "red" is the wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation emitted by my monitor, or reflected off a print's surface. I know this, and attempt to adapt for it, but that does not mean I will ever experience red in the same way you do, and so my perceptual and experiential reality is different from yours. As a father, I have lived that life of trying to balance teaching, boundaries, and freedoms for my children in a combination that will keep them safe, allow them to grow and learn, and let them discover who they are. It is a very challenging synergy to achieve, and a constantly changing formula.</p>

<p>Circling back to the topic of this thread: I think several salient points have been made. Allen's original question is, as Albert correctly notes, related to several basic philosophical questions, including nature vs. nurture. Your and Supriyo's arguments are absolutely valid in my opinion. Julie's points are more personal and subjective, but they speak, I believe honestly, to what she believes is her own creative process. She is not the first, nor will she be the last artist to assert that the subjects drive her, rather than vice versa. I'm a technically-oriented guy, so I tend to revel in the creative application of technical means. That does not make me less creative than Julie, I hope. It does mean I approach the creative process in a different way, as do you. I think the point has been well established that none of us operates in a creative vacuum; The simple act of picking up a camera ties us to the capacities and characteristics of that medium, just as the sculptor uses a chisel, not a brush, to extract form from stone. For successful photographers the tools become transparent and weightless in their hands, freeing their minds to indulge in their own creative processes. Just as Michelangelo asserted that "Every block of stone has a sculpture inside it, and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it." it is the photographer's task to see, capture, and render images that express the meaning or feeling the photographer intends for that image. This can and should be as much a spiritual/aesthetic process as it is intellectual and technical in nature. The social/historical/technical/cultural/academic foundations will always and irrefutably be there, but it is the spiritual/aesthetic nature of human creativity that I believe fuels true artists. I humbly submit that attempting to measure the spiritual component for another person is an exercise in arrogance and futility.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>David, I don't know whether we're on the same plane or not, honestly. Because you brought up reality in relation to Julie's perception of her freedom from influence. You said:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I also agree with Julie when she says she perceives herself as being free, because perception is reality for each of us.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Julie has not just been saying she perceives herself as being free. She's been saying that she IS free of influence in certain moments. She believes she is and most of us know she's not. If you want to make a distinction between Julie's perceived reality and the objective reality, I have no problem with that. I'm not sure Julie would agree, however, with that distinction. I've said all along that <em>I believe Julie when she says</em> she's free of all influence in those moments of shooting. But I don't think she <em>is</em> free of all influence in those moments of shooting, even if her reality tells her she is.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Julie: It meant that I had the means to escape an influence-inflected view, to see things without "me." A great big, deliciously easy means to explore what I otherwise could not.</p>

</blockquote>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Fred: " ... there's no such thing as someone actually <em>being</em> "purely" open ... "<br>

Julie: Sure there is. I do it.</p>

</blockquote>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Julie: Show me your evidence that there can be no such thing as a few hours of un-influenced experience.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I think you're shortchanging what Julie is saying. She's not talking about just perceiving that she's free. She's talking about actually having a few hours of un-influenced experience. I think many of us are saying what you're trying to attribute to Julie. I have said there are times when I lose track of time and am not thinking about my influences, and so my perception at the time is that I'm uninfluenced. But then I am able to sit back and realize that, even in those times, I was actually being influenced by all the things we know we're all influenced by. Julie is saying something else. She is sitting back, even when out of that space, saying that the space was un-influenced. And that's where she's wrong. Just like a teenager high on acid is wrong when he says that car is miles away when it's really only a few feet away.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>There is most certainly a wrong or right, Phil. The teenager is wrong in thinking that the car is miles away when it's only yards away. I'm not questioning that the teenager perceives the car to be miles away and I'm not questioning that the teenager believes the car is miles away. But THE CAR IS NOT MILES AWAY. A simple measuring tape will tell us that. And I would tell the teenager that he's wrong and that the car, as an objective fact, is only yards away, in the hopes that I could save his life, assuming that he wasn't out to kill himself, in which case I'd have to decide whether he was genuine in that desire and whether I wanted to support him in doing that. In most cases, I would not.</p>

<p>Supriyo provided some evidence and there is much literature out there on DNA as a persistent genetic influence as well as culture and other experiences.</p>

<p>Like I said, people can deny climate science and suggest that it's all a matter of theory and opinion. But they're loons.</p>

<p>Phil, I'm sure I don't have to tell you there's an entire science of mind and consciousness. Sure, there are many aspects of it that are debated. But there is also a lot known about how the mind works, what experience is, and how both consciousness and experience work. That's not to say I can feel what Julie feels or even know what she feels and I don't experience what Julie experiences, so, in that sense, yes, her experience is subjective. But I can know how human feelings work and, though Julie's experience is subjective, how her experience works and gets formed is NOT subjective.</p>

<p>I think most of Daniel Dennett's writings are a good beginning to understanding the science of mind and experience, including the cultural influences that act not unlike biological ones.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Phil, sorry, just reread your post and realize that my first paragraph above was unnecessary. You got that part already! The rest, though, seems pertinent.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Here's a quote from Dennett (even though I'm not a big fan of out-of-context quotes). I just hope it might inspire you to read some of the science of experience. There's plenty of measuring going on. Like I said, I don't know Julie's experience. But a lot is known about how her (and everyone's) experiences work and what kinds of things influence it. Dennett relates actual scientific experiments and studies that are being done routinely and providing many objective answers to how experience works.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Some cultural phenomena bear a striking resemblance to the cells of cell biology, actively preserving themselves in their social environments, finding the nutrients they need and fending off the causes of their dissolution.</p>

</blockquote>

[Supriyo]

Fred,

 

When I think about it, that analogy holds to a great extent. Prejudices can be thought to survive as cancer cells do.

[Supriyo]

A lot about human mind can be measured and quantified, so it is not as abstract as one would imagine.

[DavidTriplett]

<p>Fred; Perhaps, in order to achieve whatever degree of freedom in creativity that might be available, we must first believe ourselves to be free. This belief might even come with a heavy dose of self-deception. Even so, if it allows us to achieve levels of creativity that would not otherwise be available, is it necessarily a bad thing? For some reason I have the "vision quest" tradition of so many aboriginal peoples coming to mind. Participants in these traditions will swear to you that they have seen or discovered something in themselves that is apart from their normal experience and environment. These self-discoveries are frequently fueled by drugs, alcohol, or privation. Does this make them less valid for the person who experiences them? This is, perhaps, a bit off the creativity track, but I suspect there are many of the same psychological mechanisms at play. Again, I absolutely agree that we can never truly disconnect ourselves from all that has brought us to a given point. Yet, believing that we have overcome those constraints may be the genesis for new creative achievements. I agree that an artist, including Julie, cannot be completely free of prior influence, but I will not deny her the opportunity to apply her beliefs to her creative process. Just as the martial artist must first envision his hand passing through the obstacle in order to make it so, perhaps it is essential that she see herself as free in order to accomplish her goals. Sometimes "fact" and "truth" are more applicable to our tools than to our creative processes, though I would not encourage neophytes to adopt Julie's approach or assumptions. </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>David: I agree that an artist, including Julie, cannot be completely free of prior influence, but I will not deny her the opportunity to apply her beliefs to her creative process.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I never questioned her applying her beliefs to her creative process. And I actually believe she probably does benefit from however it is she feels and thinks. All I did was question her actual assertion about influence and experience in this thread, which is part of a philosophy forum. Let's look at this way. I'm very glad Bach was motivated by his belief in God, as were many of the great artists throughout history. And I'm glad they applied their beliefs to their creative process. And I can feel their passion and belief in their work and it gets me to feel something, too. But it doesn't make God exist.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Phil: That's a different issue than when saying that ones subjective experience is objectively wrong.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Phil, I'm not quite sure if your purposely obfuscating the matter or what's going on. I have never once questioned Julie's subjective experience. I have said over and over her subjective experience is hers to have. I have only questioned her objective assertion that her experience in those few hours is not influenced. What that feels like to her is not what I'm questioning. Her feeling and experience that she's not being influenced is hers to have. Her feelings, of course, are not wrong. Her experience is not wrong. Her CLAIM that she is, in fact, not influenced, is wrong.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>David and those parts of Supriyo's posts that mention his own process,</p>

<p>I am loving your descriptions because they are very familiar. When I read Supriyo saying he started out like Velcro but learned to sharpen, or refine or ... get a better eye, boy, that's familiar. When I read David's enjoyment of the technical, boy that's familiar. I learned, worked with, loved 4x5, 8x10, the wet darkroom, and of course all formulations of 35mm (believe it or not, I really enjoyed sports photography).</p>

<p>I would love to be guided by influence. I would love to have a "reason" to tap into, for what and how to do what I now do. Heck, I would love it if influence would just give me a <em>hint</em> of <em>wanting</em> ... anything in the kind of work I now do.</p>

<p>I tried that. I waited. I floundered. I tried, I tried again. It does not work. To make something good without reason means letting other forces to be felt, other "reasons" if you can call them that. I didn't go this way because I, silly me, just had some air-headed this-will-be-very-cool self-delusional who-cares urge. I have gone this way because I found out that I had no other choice (except to give up; to quit). The condition of being an influenced being (as I am, day and night at all other times) is not the means (?) to do what I do, any more than architectural means are the way to do professional sports or vice versa. A chemist's mind-set doesn't work for poetry or vice versa, either.</p>

<p>Phil, also, thank you very much for your calm posts. I think you know what I'm talking about, without needing to agree with or even know in particular about my own area of exploration.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>For Allen:</p>

<p><strong><a href="https://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/mars.jpg">Mars</a></strong><br>

<strong><a href="https://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/mars_02.jpg">Mars</a></strong><br>

<strong><a href="https://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/mars_01.jpg">Mars</a></strong></p>

<p>From the HiRISE camera orbiting the planet. Minor White would have been proud.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Minor White<br>

From Phil's earlier posted <a href="https://theawakenedeye.com/pages/minor-white-and-the-quest-for-spirit/">link </a>(https://theawakenedeye.com/pages/minor-white-and-the-quest-for-spirit/) </p>

<h4>PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY</h4>

<h4>THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION</h4>

<h4>CARLOS CASTENADA AND ANIMISM</h4>

<h4>TAOISM</h4>

<h4>ZEN</h4>

<h4>CAMERAWORK, EQUIVALENCE, SPIRIT AND PRAYER</h4>

<h4>TRANSCENDENCE OR INTERPENETRATION</h4>

<h4>OCTAVE OF PRAYER</h4>

<p>Quite a journey. </p>

[Julie H]

<p>While I greatly admire and enjoy thinking about what Minor White did and wrote (and I think it is very relevant to this thread), what I do is not what he did. My criticism of White is that, to my eye, he strained after some goal, he wanted some resolution or revelation. His work seems forced to me, even as I find his efforts incredibly admirable and even inspirational in their courage.</p>

<p>I'm more interested in Cage's 'nothing.' Not going after 'something.'</p>

<p>Sartre wrote of Alexander Calder's work:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"Valéry said the sea is always beginning over again. One of Calder's objects is like the sea and equally spellbinding: always beginning over again, always new. A passing glance is not enough; you must live with it, be bewitched by it. Then the imagination revels in these pure interchanging forms, at once free and rule-governed.</p>

<p>"... his mobiles are at once lyrical inventions, technical, almost mathematical combinations and the tangible symbol of Nature, of that great, vague Nature that squanders pollen and suddenly causes a thousand butterflies to take wing, that Nature of which we shall never know whether it is the blind sequence of causes and effects or the timid, endlessly deferred, rumpled and ruffled unfolding of an Idea." — <em>Sartre</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>... or neither of the above; "we shall never know... "</p>

[Julie H]

<p>"Schopenhauer could actually write" That is <em>so</em> important. There are amazing people of all stripes whose ideas I would love to learn more about but who can't put two words together.</p>

<p>Awakened Eye and Schopenhauer are places where I would find more to agree with than resist. I actually get the most from photographers whom I, at the same time, think are very good, but find strangely repulsive. For example, I'm trawling through all the writing I can get my hands on by or about Jeff Wall, whom I think is the best, most intelligent, most creative of the arranged-scene photographers (as compared to, for example, Crewdson, who does nothing for me). Wall's stuff is, IMO, <em>very</em> well done, and I almost love it, but there's something poisonous in it, and I'm trying to sort that out. If you've never read any of his writing, it's worth a look. He's good, and that's why his not being good <em>enough</em> is so interesting to me.</p>

<p>Another that causes a similar strongly conflicted reaction in me, is a photographer that's been almost forgotten, Jan Groover (about whom sources are rare: I paid way too much to get a short video of her). She both really fascinates and really repels me. That kind of simultaneous strong reaction is really compelling to me as far as needing to know more, or find out where that powerful reaction is coming from.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>My (very simplified) feeling about Wall -- and Groover, though applied differently -- is that their pictures are like chess games: there is perfect, often delicious and deeply complex logic, but the pieces are inert; their bodies have been snatched; they <em>serve</em>, they are without any 'color.' There is no possibility or room or access to or from anything beyond that perfect, closed logic. Wall implies, via titles, stuff beyond the frame, but it's simply the rest of the 'board,' the other squares in the chess game, IMO. I don't even think he <em>notices</em> all the other 'stuff' that's going on (just extrapolating from what he thinks Winogrand et al are up to).</p>

<p>What I would like, instead, is the feeling of visiting, like I walk into someone's kitchen. They (whoever, whatever; they are not of my making) are there before I arrive and they are there after I leave, and I could always discover more about every single thing, and (non-thing) that is sensible in that 'visit.' Snorkeling through rich, strange, seen-with-fresh-eyes worlds.</p>

<p>[Wall has a series, <em>Blind Windows</em>, that I was thinking about against your own picture of a window that you've posted to various threads. Similar things; very different effect.]</p>

<p>OT comment: why does Eauclaire (<em>New Color</em>) need to be so snarky to all color pre-New? There's room for both ...</p>

[Julie H]

<p>It's not even ambiguity. Wall, to my eye, seems genuinely blind to what does not fit his logic (which is to say, he's blind to almost everything that's not obvious). Though he plays beautifully, cleverly, in a sensitive and nuanced way, with what that logic allows, it's a small, narrow, closed, <em>willed</em> system.</p>

<p>I haven't watched the SFMoMA videos, but to the question, "Is Photography Over?" I would answer, only if you need it to be.</p>

<p>Photography makes a big hole (effortlessly, for anybody) in socially constructed vision. Most people don't 'see' what that hole reveals because most people don't see most of what they photograph, most of what is in their pictures. They didn't 'see' it when they shot it. One either learns to <em>never</em> see it, before, during or after; or one notices, is astonished at the riches, and goes exploring.</p>

<p>To those who never see it or are so invested in socially constructed visual arts, photography may seem genuinely useless or nonsensical or simply trivial.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>A lot about human mind can be measured and quantified, so it is not as abstract as one would imagine. Supriyo.<br>

　<br>

And most of it cannot hence your countries funding for research. The simplistic view is the human mind is just a super computer which can be uploaded to a another super computer. The reality is its not a super computer but something far more complex which works in very different ways. A little understanding is very misleading hence the simplistic thoughts, not so long ago, that the earth was flat and we would fall of the edge if we sailed too far. Look at the latest research into the human mind. The more we think we understand... the workings of the human mind/universe the more we come to the conlusion we really know very little and are barely scratching the surface.<br>

　<br>

Thanks for the links Julie.<br>

　<br>

Amazing photos of another world taken by a remote camera.<br>

　<br>

"I am Spirit, formless and free"<br>

　<br>

We are a spirit, formless and free if we allow our imagination to take us on that journey.</p>

[Supriyo]

<blockquote>

<p>A lot about human mind can be measured and quantified, so it is not as abstract as one would imagine.</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br /> Allen,<br /> I stand by my statement. I think you are confusing observation with understanding. They are not the same. Observations have to be interpreted to lead to understanding. I never said, we understand all the workings of human mind. I said many aspects of human mind can be measured and quantified (so mind is not abstract), which is true, and I did look at the latest research into human mind before making that statement.</p>

<p>When you talk about imagining yourself to be formless and free, you are referring to your personal faith, not hard reality. You are describing your own home within your mind, where you can wish to be whatever you want. Thats fine. However when you produce art in that state of mind and let others review your work (others who do not trust you to be formless), they may not always find that work without influence. They may as well see the effect of your unconscious bias, likings and desires reflected in your work. This is my (and possibly Fred's) point of view.</p>