Teaching Photography: Notes Assembled

Exercise #3: How to Look

27 Put two pushpins in the wall about six inches apart. Sit 15 feet away and relax for a minute or so. Look at the pushpin on the right. Look hard. Now shift your attention to the pushpin on the left. You will notice the pushpin that you are not paying attention to appears less distinct. A bit out of focus. EXERCISE #3 HOW TO LOOK Sit back and relax the muscles of your eyes so that you see the ‘field’ more completely and your eyes jump from object to object a little less. This requires a purposeful effort, but it helps photographic practice a great deal. When I was a child, maybe nine or ten, one of the cubbyholes that they pushed learning into was called ‘science.’ I think they pushed things into these cubbyholes so that young people would never get a sense of the connectedness of things. If they did, they might not sit still long enough to be fed through the system we call ‘culture’ and become ‘productive citizens.’ Anyway, back to this ‘science.’ The teacher is seldom the person who loves science and runs home after school to the basement to do experiments and research. The teacher explains that the human eye is just like a camera; light goes through the lens, stimulates the rods and cones and sends signals up the optic nerve to the brain, which then interprets what is seen. It’s a one-way street. EXERCISE #2 PUSHPIN 28 There are even charts and diagrams to make it more understandable . It’s really neat, except it’s not true. If I sit quietly for a moment on a park bench or on a rock in the forest and start to pay attention to how I see, I begin to realize that what is happening is that my vision shifts from point to point at an incredible speed. I focus my attention from object to object. In other words, I am ‘looking around.’ My mind is assembling a picture that I experience as a whole. So something quite different from that silly chart is going on. Somehow my brain and eyes are in cahoots. It’s a two-way street.§§§§§ I am walking down the street and see someone interesting on the other side. I quickly raise my camera and click. The picture reveals four cars, three buildings, two dogs and 18 people other than the one who caught my fancy. The camera did what the ‘science’ teacher said the eye does. Is there a way out of this? Maybe. Yes. A few possibilities: Run across the street and get close to the subject. The problem here is that when I get there it’s too late or the other person has seen me and the picture is then a portrait- or they get angry and turn away. This method, as well as the telescopic lens solution, also eliminates the context in which the subject exists, which is what probably attracted me in the first place. It is not possible for anyone to create a coherent, intelligent and possibly emotive photograph from most of what is seen-meaningful or not. Yogi Berra was in a slump. The coach told him to think about what he was doing when batting. He got up to the plate and struck out. Returning to the dugout, he said, ‘You can’t bat and think at the same time.’ 29 When I photograph, I am trying to grasp the ‘whole.’ This requires me to trust my instinct and impulse of the moment. I cannot do it with thinking alone. It helps to use the same lens all the time because one gets used to the field of vision of that lens and can grasp the whole more quickly. Zoom lenses are the work of the devil. They are seldom sharp on the edges, and more importantly they don’t encourage a person to establish a real ‘point of view.’ The genius of Eugene Atget is that he always knew exactly where to place the camera. This is a perfect blending of the physical, aesthetic and philosophical aspects of art-making. Position is where everything happens from. Frederick Sommer It helps to realize that the frame is not a natural thing at all, it is an imposition on vision. The paradox, of course, is that the frame is a very important contributor to content in a...