Why do we like what we like?

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>Archetypes.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>I am not sure what that means, Andy, but it impelled me to go look at <a href="/photodb/member-photos?user_id=7241712&include=all"><em><strong>your portfolio.</strong></em></a><br>

<em><strong> </strong></em><br>

There isn't a one there that I don't like.</p>

<p>--Lannie<em><strong><br /></strong></em></p>

[Landrum Kelly]

 

<blockquote>

<p>TV eyes. A TV mind.<br>

As described way back in 1976 by Marshall McLuhan as "a ceaselessly forming contour of things limned by the scanning-finger."<br>

It does. Not. Stop.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Now what, Julie?</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

 

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>No answer, and not sure whether it is coincidence, but just read <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/06/20/art-and-taste-in-the-internet-age">this article</a> today. Brings up some nice points to ponder about.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>If I look at a mountain and say, "Look at that mountain!" If I look at a tree and say, "Look at that tree!" etc.</p>

<p>Are not these and comparable statements eloquent expressions of aesthetic judgment? Do I have to elaborate?</p>

<p>If you have a picture of a wall, and I say, "I love the way the light comes off that wall," was there much more that I could have said that would have helped?</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>Whoa! Wouter! Is this not an act of divine Providence?! What a great link. God is about timing, <em>great</em> timing.</p>

<p>"What It Is Like to Like" <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/06/20/art-and-taste-in-the-internet-age"><em>What a great title!</em></a></p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Julie H]

<p>See Wouter's post. Or, prove me wrong and take John Elderfield's instructions and apply them to your linked OP photo. Post your results:</p>

<p>.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>It always takes time, of course, to read a painting. Even with a painting that presents itself instantaneously, we will want to explain that instantaneity to ourselves by returning to it, to examine its parts and hold them in readiness in our mind until they fall back into place and can be perceived instantaneously again.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>.</p>

<p>Not. Going. To. Happen. So, see Wouter's post again.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>I was reading Wouter's linked article while you were posting, Julie.</p>

<p>Now what?</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>Vanderbilt is intrepid; he is also fair. He desperately wants to find a non-circular account of preferences, something better than “People like this kind of thing because this is the kind of thing that they—or people around them, or people who are supposed to know—like,” but he has to admit defeat.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Alas. We can talk around it, and talk around it we do. Then what?</p>

<p>I have noticed that very often what I like at first is not what I like last. Some things require some time to "acquire a taste for." Some of the best things are not appreciated at first very much at all, but the things that endure. . . in taste. . . ; those are the ones that we remember, that I remember.</p>

<p>There is an emotional resonance for me in that which I remember. </p>

<p>Compare "meaningful relationship" to "raw sex."</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>Wondering about why you like what you like does not make you a narcissist.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Actually, you're right. Let's scrap my original thoughts and approach it differently.<br /> <br /> What I like can sometimes get in my way. What I liked when I first started photography is much different from what I like now. I've grown suspicious of what I like to the extent that when I find myself liking something, that will now often spur me on to challenge myself to move on to something different.</p>

<p>When I first got into classical music, I was so impressed by any professional pianist I heard that I liked every version of my favorite Beethoven sonata. As I learned about music, and studied and practiced piano, I developed an ear and began to discriminate more, hear more of the subtleties of playing, and appreciated the difference in performances.<br /> <br /> When I started in photography, I appreciated the more easy to digest stuff. It was less work for me. As I learned more, did more of my own photography, exposed myself to different types of work, I began to develop a deeper appreciation for more challenging work. <br /> <br /> "Like," to me, often represents a state of comfort. And I've come to appreciate discomfort and challenge as a way of getting through to deeper expression. Things like longing and tension have become more important to me than "like."<br /> <br /> "Narcissim" was the wrong word. Maybe, for me, it's more about self indulgence. If I make too big a deal over what I like, I risk getting mired in that and not challenging myself to explore other things.<br /> <br /> I may have, but didn't mean to, imply that what I like is unimportant. I just meant to separate aesthetics from taste. If I'm having trouble putting my finger on why I like something, I can still intelligently discuss the aesthetics of it. I can put it into historical perspective, talk about the way the light and shadows act on the subject, talk about how it makes me feel without necessarily being able to say why I like it. <br /> <br /> You talked about a lot of the words you read being a waste of time because they don't really tell you why someone likes the photo. I was merely trying to say that maybe a lot of those words aren't trying to be about why someone likes the photo. They're about simply observing the photo and talking about how different elements and qualities of the photo interact and how that's perceived. The words may have meaning beyond a concern for taste. <br /> <br /> In thinking about this more, I realize I often do know why I like a photo, if I take the time to think about it and to articulate it.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.vogue.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/26/03-nan-goldin-ballad.jpg">HERE'S</a> a Nan Goldin photo I like.</p>

<p>I like it because it suggests a loose narrative to me. I feel a story going on. I like how the saturated color seems to be emanating from the light while seeming also not only to bathe the people in it but to actually become a part of them. I like the mood. It's a bit mysterious, somber. I like that I can't quite tell if she's looking at him or at me. She seems engaged in the scene. He seems more aloof. I like that contrast. I like that it's somewhat downbeat. I can hear jazz playing next door. I like that he's smoking. It's a bit subversive but also symbolic. It helps connect this to an almost film noir quality but without really being so. The cigarette is suggestive of a broader association to style. I like that the cigarette is echoed in the picture on the wall. I like that that picture already has an obvious orange tint which is then further emphasized by the orange tint of the entire photo. I like that kind of layering and subtext. I like that the light on his face is hot. There's a sexiness in that and I sense sex in the air. I like the lonely heat pipe in the corner. It adds to the pensiveness and quiet. I like the way the shadow on the wall divides the frame and seems to separate their two spaces a bit.</p>

<p>All this is not how I view the photo. My initial viewing is wordless and my gut reaction is important. But, if asked or if I ask myself, I guess I can articulate why I like it. One reason to do that is to help develop a visual language and coherence that will inspire and infuse my own photography. Not because I will necessary copy something like this, though doing something like that isn't a bad exercise, but because the more of this visual language I can internalize, the more fluent I will become in being able to express things visually.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>I just meant to separate aesthetics from taste.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>"Taste" has always left me feeling a bit unnerved, Fred, or maybe just a bit more vacant than I already was. I am not sure why. "I like" is the beginning. "I still like it" is better, but only because something there is memorable. . . maybe. </p>

<p>My first real love still rattles around in my mind, in my soul. She was no ghost then, nor is she now, though she passed some time ago. What makes her different from all of the others? Wow, have I ever asked that--over and over! Yet, yet, I am not sure that I am any closer to an answer than I ever was.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p> </p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>I was merely trying to say that maybe a lot of those words aren't trying to be about why someone likes the photo. They're about simply observing the photo and talking about how different elements and qualities of the photo interact and how that's perceived. The words may have meaning beyond a concern for taste.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>I concede those points, Fred. I was just struck by something else that we seem to "have to" talk about: disasters, great and small. I will not give examples, but I remember disasters (mine or those of friends of mine) that we just had to talk through. We needed something, something that it seemed that we could only get in our conversations with each other. I am not sure what it was. I don't know why it was. Maybe it was about comfort. Maybe it was about our communing. Maybe it was about supporting one another.</p>

<p>I also remember being so totally in love in the summer of 1965, but she was not there most of that summer. I kept talking about her to my best friend. He finally said, "You only want to talk about her." Yes, alas, since he had never met her, the conversation was a bit one-sided. He took it as long as he could.</p>

<p>She was not a disaster. She was a work of art. Though not the prettiest woman I had ever met, she was somehow the most beautiful. . . in some sense.</p>

<p>There was meaning there--in her and in the disasters. I had to talk about them all, but especially about her.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p><a href="http://www.vogue.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/26/03-nan-goldin-ballad.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">HERE'S</a> a Nan Goldin photo I like.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes, Fred, that is special. I shall come back to it, but what you have said resonates with me.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I guess I can articulate why I like it. One reason to do that is to help develop a visual language and coherence that will inspire and infuse my own photography. Not because I will necessary copy something like this, though doing something like that isn't a bad exercise, but because the more of this visual language I can internalize, the more fluent I will become in being able to express things visually.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Well said, Fred. Very well said. You have thrown a lot out there. Let me think some more.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[leslie_cheung]

<p>...my pen rai</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Leslie, this is so funny. I just googled "my pen rai" and in the google search blurb, what comes up is this . . .</p>

<blockquote>

<p>“My entire house is flooded with two metres of dark, stinky water and crocodiles are raiding my kitchen."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>And I wondered if this was your metaphorical comment on something you saw or something that was said here. Then I opened the <a href="https://www.travelfish.org/beginners_detail/thailand/91">LINK</a> to see that that quote is not the meaning of "my pen rai" but that "my pen rai" could be a response to it.<br>

<br>

The author claims that <em>"Thais are remarkably resilient in their quests to not get stressed out."</em> ;-)</p>

[sjmurray]

<p>Coming from a more psychological perspective, I think photos (and art in general) have the ability to "trigger" something in us. We may not know exactly why, but ideas or emotions are triggered by the image. We then find ourselves experiencing thoughts and emotions we hadn't planned or expected. I see this phenomenon all the time working in psychology and addiction, and often the reaction is severe or detrimental. I think for most of us things that are "triggered" come from our past experiences in life and may be very pleasant as much as negative. Just think of all the experiences you've had in your whole life, and how they are all woven into the complexity that defines your individual uniqueness.</p>

[leslie_cheung]

<p>This thread is similar to me attempting to explain Kierkegaard to sister. Or, explaining the hayflick limit to my great aunt. Fred: When I wrote my (mai) pen rai, I was thinking what will be, will be...</p>

<p>The absurdity of attempting to explain, say, why Trump is actually more left on a few issues to HRC, to my friends/asscoiate on the left.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>Leslie, I am not sure that the difficulty (or even impossibility) of answering a question means that the question is or was meaningless. . . or unimportant. This question ran up against the wall of metaphysics, of ultimate questions about ultimate reality, of Ultimate Truth (a concept not held in high repute in some quarters). Some would thereby define it as off-limits, meaningless. I will not.</p>

<p>Mai pen rai. Está bien. It's okay.</p>

<p>It may yet require an answer from each of us.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[leslie_cheung]

<p>I think that between personal taste, aesthetic's vague definitions, cultural differences, generational differences, subjective experience differences etc...it's absurd to explain, or describe verbally our feelings/thoughts on a web forum. That is *my* opinion. Don't let my opinion stop anyone else from participation from this thread;)</p>

<p> </p>

[Supriyo]

I have often pondered over why I like something. In visual art, I refer to a lot of things as liking, intrigue, mystery,

confusion, uneasiness, sorrow, empathy, pretty much anything that is opposite of boring. To me, combinations of all these

culminate into 'linking'. Now as for the question of what exactly went on in my head when I liked something, I often cannot

explain it. What is explanation? Isn't it the same as trying to put something in terms of words? May be it was never meant

to be expressed in words. May be it's the shortcoming of language. Is it surprising? To me, not. If science can't explain

everything, so can't words. But, IT still exists. I know it, because I can feel it. Like there is an universe beyond what is

visible, which we will never see due to constraints of natural laws, but it's there.

[leslie_cheung]

<p>If it were not so, so difficult...perhaps pandora, spotify and the likes would have already created the perfect "like" algorithm?</p>

<p><br /> it's visceral/emotional...*irrational*, we are not computational/robots!</p>

[Supriyo]

<p>Lannie's post on the metaphysical question of why Big Bang happened --</p>

<p>I am sure, there is a scientific explanation behind it. There is probably a scientific explanation behind everything that we can observe or feel. I don't think that undermines the philosophical question behind it. I think science and philosophy address completely different aspects of the same questions. Why do I exist? Because of some biochemical reactions, genes combining together ... NO, I mean, that could be anybody. Why me? Who am I?</p>

<p>In my opinion, every phenomenon can have a scientific aspect and a philosophical aspect. Mixing both has always been a disaster to humanity, from the time of Plato to present times. I would be interested to read Stefen Hawking's writings about Big Bang's origin to see whether he really overstepped the realm of science. Although I am not sure, I think a man like Hawking is very aware of science's place.</p>

<p>I think, everything has a physical reality that is a consensus reached by all humans (scientific reality), and then there is the subjective reality that is only perceived by me. Both are equally valid to me. When I see Jack McRitchie's photo of a electrical meter, ask a scientist, he will describe it as a collection of wires feeding into a box. To me, it resembles a monster with tentacles. Both interpretations are equally valid. So are scientific and metaphysical interpretations of Big Bang.</p>

<p>I find this relevant to this discussion: A conversation between Einstein and Tagore, a celebrated poet from the Indian subcontinent: <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/04/27/when-einstein-met-tagore/">https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/04/27/when-einstein-met-tagore/</a></p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>Lannie's post on the metaphysical question of why Big Bang happened -- I am sure, there is a scientific explanation behind it. There is probably a scientific explanation behind everything that we can observe or feel.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Stephen Hawking would agree with you. He has sought his "theory of everything." I like his physics very much.</p>

<p>But his fundamental premise is that the physical universe needs no further explanation.</p>

<p>I doubt that, for what that's worth. My own "theory of everything" would start with a very different premise: God exists, and the world exists in the mind of God.</p>

<p>That is, "this" is not all there is. From that I cannot deduce why we like what we like, but neither can I deduce that from Hawking's premises, either.</p>

<p>We won't settle this here. . . .</p>

<p>I have been reading Alfred North Whitehead over the last few weeks, his <em>Process and Reality</em> and his other works on science and mathematics. I remember working through <em>Principia Mathematica</em> in grad school in a course called "Advanced Symbolic Logic" back in late 1971 or early 1972. That work was co-authored with Bertrand Russell.</p>

<p>Whitehead is famous for saying that "Consciousness is an emergent property of physical processes." Fair enough, but is that the end of the story, or the beginning?</p>

<p>Russell was a noted atheist, and so I always assumed that so was Whitehead. I was astonished to find out this past week that he was anything but. He had a lot of negative things to say about orthodox Christianity, but he was definitely a theist in that tradition.</p>

<p>Both men worked together with a lot of mutual respect, but I am quite sure that neither ever got the other to agree with him on first principles.</p>

<p>Moral of the story? Reasonable persons have always disagreed and always will.</p>

<p>The great conversation continues, and it reaches into every little corner of human existence. Should we be surprised that it sticks its nose into discussions about beauty and other aesthetic considerations?</p>

<p>It goes wherever it will. Whoever tries to stamp it out or shut it up will find it shouting from the rooftops.</p>

<p>The moguls who run this outfit don't want this stuff on the front page. What are they afraid of? Why?</p>

<p>This has been a busy thread the past twenty-four hours, but it is not showing up on the front page of Photo.net yet. It is not because it is about God or not-God. It is because it is about nudity, about argumentation, about anything not sanitized in the tradition of the Grand New Photo.net.</p>

<p>Repression takes many forms, none of them good.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>This question ran up against the wall of metaphysics, of ultimate questions about ultimate reality, of Ultimate Truth</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It didn't run up against any of that for me. I answered it. There's a part of this I will choose to leave a mystery (with a lower case "m") and just wouldn't try to put into words. But there's much that's really not so impossible when I give it some thought and take the time and energy to articulate those thoughts. <br>

<br>

By the way, <a href="https://robc224.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/smith_minimata.jpg">HERE'S</a> a photo by Eugene Smith that moves me greatly, that I think is deep, personal, and important, but that I wouldn't describe as a photo I "like." As I said, "liking" is not necessarily the hook I'm looking for in photos I view or make.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>Why are you moved by what you are moved by, Fred?</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I imagine it has to do with a combination of my genetic makeup, my past experiences, the photos I've been exposed to, my family life, my third grade teacher yelling at me for cracking jokes in the back of the class, my brother loving film and influencing my visual appreciations, the socio-economic status I was born into, my culture, a Shakespeare class I took in high school, my memories of parents' and grandparents' deaths, the crush I had on Gary Schultz in Junior High School. Honestly, what do you expect me to say? Might as well ask why I am the person I am. Any question can be made metaphysically impossible to answer, extra specially deep. It can always boil down to the basic WHO AM I and WHY AM I HERE? For me, though, those questions often seem a colossal waste of time and a convenient way to avoid the task of learning about the history and aesthetics of photography and putting just this kind of curiosity into photography instead of navel-gazing.</p>

<p>Why do you ask what you ask? (That's a rhetorical question.)</p>

<p>Most of the answers to why I am moved by what moves me are in my photos. That's where that energy goes rather than answering such questions. As I've said before, I mostly gave up Philosophy for music and photography because I felt music and photography could better approach some of these questions than logical and expository analysis.</p>