Charles T. Low Photography

First:

Influential Photographers

I have another, somehow found on the Internet:

Ly Hoang Long

I know next to nothing of this extraordinary artist from Vietnam, except that I gasp daily when seeing his new and prolific work. For those seeking either amazing photography (as a viewer), or inspiration (as a photographer), then I suggest following this fellow's photography. Among many other attributes, he does understand light.

website – Instagram

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Perception

It's all in how we see things

The photograph above clearly continues my recent — and recently more consistent — theme of dawn.

My point however is that we will not all see it as the same.

The reason for this resides largely in something shown to us by the study of neuroscience, specifically an aspect of vision which I have touched upon here many times in the past, namely that we see with our brains, not with our eyes.

Our eyes only (mainly, as it turns out, not strictly-speaking only) collect the data. What happens to it next occurs in the brain, which constructs for us an image to see.

I recently heard this emphasized and explained again clearly in:

A World History of Photography (Naomi Rosenblum),

which I am currently reading (caution: not a casual read!).

Consider that the retina is curved, and sees things upside down and left-to-right, and that we can only physically focus on one minuscule point at a time, and then compare that with how a scene looks to you. Our brains simulate a larger scene for us, all parts of it in focus (let alone in three dimensions — quite an astounding feat).

The phenomenon of brain-seeing, as opposed to eye-seeing, should require no further explanation. I can however extend that — and I'm not making this stuff up! — to all of us bringing a lifetime of experience and preconception to everything which we perceive.

So, the image above will look differently, and will mean different things, to an artist than to a meteorologist than to a mariner. It will look differently depending on our past exposure to art, how our parents and other formative influences thought about art, what culture we were raised in, etc.

I have heard viewers responding to the same image of mine, one saying warm and peaceful, and another saying hellish(!).

Some people prefer country music, and others Western. (Go figure.) And not all, and perhaps few, of these preferences are innate; I suspect that most of them we have learned, far below consciousness, from every previous influence in our lives to date, influences which then condition our brains to see in a specific manner.

Happily, there is more than one way to enjoy the piece above, and most viewers seem to have taken pleasure in it.

How do you feel about abstracts? I use the word feel instead of think quite deliberately.

Clearly, different people feel quite differently!

The only question I ask myself — try to ask myself — is whether the above image itself — any image — intrigues me, or not.

This one does, or I would not show it. YMMV.

So, what are we going to say about a double-rainbow? People have gushed over this (thank you, people!).

Two things:

• again, I note that I was photographing something else, working reasonably well although not as I had imagined, and during a break in the action, I thought to turn around and look behind, and saw this — amazing how often that kind of thing happens;
• my own perception of it likely differs quite markedly from most; I assess it — not solely, but largely — from a technical-photography perspective, and suffice it to say that that leads me in a different direction.

Also from the Private-Property Project (many thanks to the land-owner), I had left the studio in the early-dawn with the skies mostly clear, and betted on them clearing further. As I drove, they clouded up further, but I was twenty minutes in, and thought I would just follow through.

Then this (above).

Well ... it looks gorgeous to me. I have no say over how your brain has processed it.

Below is something similar, different location if similar theme, and of course the dawn sky is never the same twice.

It will matter little to most, but does to me, that I made it with a fisheye lens, ultra-wide angle (or #UWA in hashtag-speak). The typical curved lines, the fisheye effect, is absent here merely because the horizon almost bisects the image (breaking a rule!). Absent such a lens, I would have had to make a multi-image panorama in order to get it all in.

Does knowing about the lens change anything about the image? No it does not. But for me, having gone through the process, it changes the perception which my brain creates of the image.

Many, many gremlins in the (visual-perception) system too often come between us and the work in front of us. (Sometimes, they are good gremlins!)

Above is a gently-telephoto exposure, again of no consequence other than that I as the artist had to make that decision at the time. I made it at the same time and location as the UWA; what a difference a lens makes! Also, you won't be able to overlay them mentally, as this is a highly-dynamic process, the sky changing constantly.

Below, sticking with the dawn theme, this photograph includes a tugboat (receding, pushing a barge). What you think of it may be influenced by what you think of dawn, of water, of sky, of the colours, the shapes, etc., but also ... what you think of boats, and ships, and of tugboats in particular. Can utilitarian vessels like tugboats be beautiful!

You bet your sweet bow pud they can be! But that's just me and my brain; your brain will have its own conceptions — preconceptions — of tugboats.

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Perception is in the brain of the seer

So, at this point in the blog, we've all seen the same images, and they will simply look — and feel — different to each of us. The brain does not present to us a literal, detailed view of the scene in front of us, and thank goodness it doesn't, or it would overwhelm us with minutiae, instant by instant. It's usually a good thing, except when we can't (for example) find the car keys which are right in front of us.

In terms of artistic appreciation, it has become clearer and clearer to me that what we see, and what we think about what we see, has a tremendously powerful, subconscious brain overlay; we do not simply see what's there, nor would we want to; but it does make me pause, when I'm rejecting an image, mine or someone else's, and wonder about on what basis. Perhaps I have preconceptions which I could usefully shed.

Occasionally, my brain might need a quiet little talking to.

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Thank you all so much for reading.

Charles T. Low
Photographer
Blog #72
2021-10-04

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