Serendipity in wildlife photography

[Moving On]

The most important feature of language in communication is a common definition of what words mean.

The title of the thread was clear and clearly related to the photograph.

Redefinition of the word "serendipity" is not necessary, (and a bit distracting) to expand the conversation to make perfectly legitimate observations about the photo.

Edited May 5, 2018 by Moving On

[Norma Desmond]

I see a major advantage in thinking beyond dictionary meanings and analyzing (or distinguishing) the implications as opposed to face values.

 

And I think, importantly, the same can be said of photography. Photography can function both literally—accurately or at least narratively representing our world—and it can also function more metaphorically and poetically and, as you say, by implication. I tend toward appreciating language for its living qualities rather than its fixed definitions and I tend toward appreciating photographs for their expressive capabilities more than their strictly representative qualities.

 

The London researchers I referenced are studying the common usages of "serendipity" which are at least as and probably more important than the dictionary definitions of it, because language lives. Words are not bound by what a particular book says they mean but rather they live by how people use them.

 

In most cases, meaning is use. --L. Wittgenstein

Langauge, IMO, is not a fixed structure imposed upon the world from without. It's a fluid system that's related to our everyday practice and use.

 

Similarly, photography isn't just proof that I've got a really sharp lens or that I was there at the right place and time. It's also using that lens to show that I'm alive, that the world is multi-faceted, and that imagination is as important as fact.

[larrycooper]

Isn’t mindfulness a focused attention on the present/current moment and experience? This includes an awareness of one's physical as well as emotional states, in this moment. I actually think preparation for serendipity would be a distraction to mindfulness. Thinking one can somehow prepare for serendipity would be a projection into the future, not an attentiveness to the present, IMO.

 

I'm in favor of preparation and having a prepared mind. That has served my life and my photography quite well. It hasn't affected my experiencing serendipity. The thing I love about serendipity is that it happens when I’m LEAST prepared. It shocks my system. Serendipidity feels to me like it comes from without, not within. It’s the universe aligning in a certain way, regardless of me, not because of me.

 

You're starting to sound like someone with whom I was discussing the role of "luck" in sports. I suggested that about the only sport I could think of that didn't involve luck was chess. She disagreed with me because, "Lots of times, I'm looking at the board and a good move just appears to me. That's how luck works in chess." It sort of shocked her system when she realized what she could do.

 

I think your understanding of living mindfully and mine are very different.

[Norma Desmond]

I think your understanding of living mindfully and mine are very different.

That’s certainly a possibility.

I suggested that about the only sport I could think of that didn't involve luck was chess.

A) This is the first I’ve heard of chess being referred to as a sport. Interesting. I think of sports as involving more physical exertion than chess demands. But, I’m always open to creative uses of language and chess as a sport gets my imagination going. I grew up a couple of miles from Shea Stadium, so a bat and ball and some running come to mind when I think of sports, not to mention a whole lot of losing in the early years of the franchise.

 

B) The Yankees, that other NYC baseball team, had a pitcher named Ron Guidry who was really into chess. And Don Drysdale of the L.A. Dodgers (hated rivals of my current team, the San Francisco Giants) was another pitcher who played chess. The 2016 St. Louis Cardinals had three chessboards installed in their clubhouse over which the players bonded before games. Both are games of intense strategy, as well as other things, of course. Interesting that baseball is easily referred to as a game (take me out to the . . .) but chess is not typically referred to as a sport.

 

c) The only luck I’ve ever had in chess is having an opponent worse than me, which is a rare occurrence! :(

[Moving On]

Baseball is a meal and chess is an emotion.

[Norma Desmond]

Baseball is a meal and chess is an emotion.

A decent writer with a good imagination could extend those metaphors and probably do something interesting with them both. “I’m feeling a bit chess today” isn’t hard to imagine working. And, back when I was going to Shea regularly, I could easily make a meal out of peanuts and cracker jacks, and it would have been a lot cheaper back then!

[Sandy Vongries]

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, obviously. OED as well.

[Moving On]

It is what it is.

And I know the meaning of "is"........

Poetic license is called license for a reason.

The lengths of particular posts is telling in this thread.

Edited May 6, 2018 by Moving On

[Moving On]

The point of learning the meaning of more words is to use less.

[Moving On]

Nice photo piece on the subject of capturing wildlife coming on 60 minutes tonight......

Into the wild with Thomas D. Mangelsen

Edited May 6, 2018 by Moving On

[Supriyo]

Words are not bound by what a particular book says they mean but rather they live by how people use them.

 

I agree with that. The formal meaning of a word is only limited by the contemporary understanding of the subject or the concept. As new understanding emerges, the meanings of words do evolve. The word "art" itself is an example of that IMO.

[Supriyo]

Evolution of words refer to gradual change, or exploration near the commonly accepted meanings, not 'any' interpretation.

[Norma Desmond]

That the meaning of words may change depending on the context doesn't follow that (existing) words can be open to any interpretation one wants to use them in.

I partially agree with this. If we start using words with any random interpretation we want, we risk not being understood, possibly even speaking nonsense. But, if we otherwise make ourselves clear (such as through context, poetic license--as has been mentioned), by using words in ways not used before, then we can communicate, sometimes more effectively than if we stick to using words in more traditional ways.

 

In any case, this has nothing to do with the use of "serendipity." As I mentioned, the researchers took the time and energy to find out how people were using and understanding the word. They didn't go out telling people what the new meaning was. They discovered how the word was often being used. That's not a word being open to "any" interpretation. It's a word being commonly interpreted, through evolution, differently from how some dictionaries define it.

[Moving On]

The 60 Minutes Photography piece was enjoyable.

 

Catch of the Day, you might say......

[Sanford]

1-1/2 hours away still but I plan on watching.

[DavidTriplett]

It never ceases to amaze me the twists and turns the use of one, simple word can drag us all through! Serendipity. Serendipity! Serendipity? Really?

There's the old saw about a tree falling in the forest... Unusual, interesting, intriguing, rare, amazing things happen all the time. If a bird sings a beautiful tune, but no one hears it, can it be beautiful? A photograph would be useless to this purpose, while a fine, digital, directional recorder might be useful (but I don't carry one of those around). Serendipity simply is the synergy of circumstances that places one in the position to experience that thing. As a photographer, preparation (in skill, equipment, technique, knowledge) allows one to capture and then communicate the image. AA was famous for acknowledging the serendipity associated with some of his most famous photographs, such as Moonrise, Hernandez. Yet, it was only his skill and creativity that allowed him to capture so evocative an image, as opposed to simply stopping on the roadside to admire the view. The event existed regardless. AA captured it and shared it with us.

[Norma Desmond]

I’d say “capture” and “creativity”, in many cases, don’t go hand in hand. I think Ansel Adams, including Moonrise, was much more skilled than creative. In many ways, he was skilled beyond compare. And his prints are an amazing result of that skill. But that’s not necessarily being creative. I see Adams as one of the most skilled and less creative of the well-known photographers.

 

Words are not as important as a matter just of semantics as they are a help in getting to some complex and nuanced ideas. There’s some benefit in keeping things simple, but not everything is, thankfully. So a discussion about the meaning of words, to me, is helpful if it gets me to think of different nuances in what I’m thinking about and, in the case of photos, what I’m looking at. The discussion to me has been beneficial not so much in deciding a debate between whether serendipidity actually means this or that but rather in looking at various things a photo might show and a photographer making photos might experience, such as accident, luck, confluence, alignment, intention, and the different degrees and layers to which these things can play a role. These things all play a role not only when out shooting but when culling one’s photos and processing them as well, when creating series of photos or even folders or groupings in a portfolio or exhibition.

[Glenn McCreery]

In an interview with Tom Mangelson on CBS given in a link in a nearby post, Mangelson describes photographing a cougar's habits by going back to the same location for over forty days in a row and waiting twelve to fourteen hours each day for the cougar to appear. Now that's patience!, and if that is what it takes to be a top wildlife photographer, why I could never be one.

 

Ansel Adams invented the zone system and applied it to his photography. That is being creative, although probably not in the visual sense that I think that Fred is referring to. I think that Adam's creativity in Moonrise was in the printing, and how his interpretation changed over the years.

 

Ansel Adams was not a patient person. I spent a week at the Ansel Adams Yosemite photography workshop in the late seventies, traipsing around with Adams, John Sexton, etc., with a view camera. Adam's approach was to be continually on the move. If the lighting did not look right, he would leave, do something else, such as write (another creative act), and return in a few hours or the next day. He probably needed more patience when printing photographs, since he was a perfectionist.

[Norma Desmond]

probably not in the visual sense that I think that Fred is referring to

Right. In other senses as well. I think he lacked expressively and in terms of sensibility. As an example, look at his work in the Japanese internment camps (especially compared to Dorothea Lange's work in the same situation). Those camp photos, except for the subject matter, aren't approached much differently from how he approached Yosemite's beauty. So it comes off as a sterile, cleansed, false view of what the camps were (despite what may have been the best of intentions). He didn't have the aesthetic or expressive range to adjust his style and approach to a very different kind of situation, and so he winds up doing a disservice to history and to the people who were in those camps. It's a sensibility issue, IMO, not just a visual one. His photos of those camps are an emotional, social, and aesthetic miscue. In terms of Yosemite, while he captures an iconic and socially important homage to the park, I think the perfection of technique stands well above the emotional connection in the photos themselves. Yosemite is more raw than one could ever imagine from looking at his photos. It might be that he captured the physical beauty of Yosemite but without much of its heart and soul, IMO. That being said, he was an important advocate for the park and for the environment in general, gave much to the world in terms of our appreciation of nature and our surroundings. I have a lot of respect and admiration for him and still look at his photos regularly.

 

Probably, as you note, there are different kinds of creativity. There's certainly creativity in the application of craft. That's different from artistic or aesthetic creativity, IMO.

[Supriyo]

When I compare Adams' and Lange's photographs of the Japanese internment side by side, I see a clear difference. Lange's photos are live with rich symbolism, and reflect a more intimate view into her subjects, while Adams' photos are somewhat distant and present a mood of calmness and tranquility on the verge of feeling fabricated, as if everything is just fine. However the selective portrayal of happiness in Adam's photos only intensifies the question that I believe many of us have asked ourselves, 'why were they there in the first place?'. We are not looking at Germany, or South Africa or Stalin's Russia, this was USA, who was fighting a war of liberation. All the ideals and enlightenment that resulted in the US constitution would be meaningless if they were ignored during times of desperation. Nevertheless, interning the Japanese was not even a practical decision or desperate measure, it was a prejudicial paranoia. Unfortunately, Adams' photos served to strengthen the military propaganda aimed at absolving the government of injustice.

 

To me, Yosemite and other national parks were Adam's playground for materializing his pioneering and creative techniques ... there's nothing wrong with that. However when I see Adam's works (and I have seen a lot of them thanks to media), it feels like he had a penchant for serene beauty (which may appear toothless at times) from which he never quite released himself. For example, he portrayed the serenity after a winter storm, but never quite photographed the storm itself. Nature is not only a place to sit in an armchair and sip a cup of tea while enjoying it from a distance, its also a place that surrounds, overpowers man with it's vigor, it's stubbornness. That rough unruly side of nature is notably absent from Adams' work. The penchant for serenity didn't serve him well while photographing the Japanese camp, in my opinion. Its not entirely clear whether his intension was to consciously leave out all signs of hardship, or whether his weakness for serene aesthetics got the best of him, perhaps its a mix of both, but one thing is clear, we don't see much of his developing or printing skills or his mastering of light in the camp photos that are evident in his national park photos.

[Moving On]

why were they there in the first place?

They were there because FDR and his new deal progressives wanted them there. FDR was a pal of Uncle Joe. Stalin was our ally.

[Supriyo]

Stalin was a military ally out of necessity. As far as I know, FDR was more of a pal to Churchill than to Stalin. As for the rest, we aren't allowed to discuss politics on PN.

[DavidTriplett]

Each of us has his or her own creative, technical, and perceptual strengths and weaknesses, as well as personal prejudices and philosophies. I have no doubt that my own photographic work reflects these characteristics in me, and that the same is true for each of us. It is not surprising to me that some would find AA's work in the camps less personal and appealing than that of others who specialized in people as subjects, or who came at the subject with a different mission statement (whether assigned or personal). I sometimes wonder at the criticism we level at other practitioners of our art/craft, when every one of us is subject to our own personalities as photographers, to the point where I can routinely pick out Supriyo's images from John Snell's, Michael Linder's, Madeleine Guinette's, and others. It is not because Supriyo's images are better or worse, it is simply because they reflect his unique personality as a photographer. I find Fred's rather blanket statements about AA's creativity, or lack thereof, to be hard to swallow, if for no other reason than AA is a proven and successful practitioner on a world-wide stage. I accept without qualm that AA's style and subject matter may not be equally to everyone's taste, but that is a very different matter. Criticizing his photographs as extensions of his politics and worldview might, while fair, say as much or more about the critiquer as it does about the photographer.

[DavidTriplett]

Criticizing his photographs as extensions of his politics and worldview might, while fair, say as much or more about the critiquer as it does about the photographer.

This also raises the issue of judging historical figures or events by today's standards and expectations, rather than as products of their place and time in history. I believe it is a critical mistake to evaluate people and their behaviors without considering the time, place, and circumstances of the individual.

[Norma Desmond]

Criticizing his photographs as extensions of his politics and worldview might, while fair, say as much or more about the critiquer as it does about the photographer.

I think a critique or assessment of someone else's photos says as much about the one providing the comments as they do about the photos themselves. My critiques do very much say a lot about me as a person.

 

Since you mentioned my name just before this particular sentence, I want to ask you to read my comments again. What I emphasized were not his politics and worldview per se (which I made sure to say I did not have knowledge of and thought he likely had the best of intentions). What I said, in terms of the lack of creativity I perceive, was that his approach and style didn't meet the subject matter he was dealing with, and that's both in the case of Yosemite and the case of Manzanar, though his style works better for Yosemite than Manzanar. Even if I disagreed with his politics (and, to repeat, I don't know what his politics may have been), I would judge his creativity based on the expression of those politics, not on the politics themselves. That's why I can resent or even revile an artist like Leni Riefentstahl, hate the political message of her work in photos and film, and still recognize the brilliance of it as well as the creativity of her vision, even while I recognize the danger and horror of the propaganda she helped put out there. Just as I have many disagreements with much organized religion and yet recognize its inspiration to many great artists as well as the beauty and creativity of much of what has been produced in the name of religion.

if for no other reason than AA is a proven and successful practitioner on a world-wide stage

I think there ought to be more and better reasons than that. There are way too many proven and successful practitioners on the world-wide stage who deserve to be negatively critiqued on certain levels.