Thoughts on Photography

In neurology the function of neural structures is often discovered when the structure is destroyed and the organism survives. In other words, by observing what the deficit is the neurologist discovers what a certain neural structure function is. Given this paradigm, I’ve been wondering what function photography, as embodied in the use of my recently defunct camera, plays in my thinking about the world.

Since I’ve been focusing mainly on macro photography, depth of field has been a very important aspect of the pictures I’ve been working with. Macro photographers often seek out a narrow depth of field, so that a blurry background will highlight the object being focused on. There are certainly other ways a photographer has of emphasizing a subject, but one issue seems to stand out when I think of depth of field. The phenomena of being able to perceive an in focus foreground and a blurred background does not seem to be a part of human vision, but rather an artifact of photography. One might argue that peripheral vision is blurry, and that is true, but in a photograph the blurred area is set, and does not alter. In contrast, when I am looking at an object with my own eyes it is clear, and in focus. When I shift my attention to something in the background, my eyes automatically compensate and will focus on the object in the background. The human function of sight is set up to always keep the object of attention in focus.

So one interesting thought about macro photography with a shallow depth of field, a focused subject, and a blurred background, is that it is really a statement by the photographer; a way of saying this is what I was looking at, at this moment. In a way the viewer of a photograph can in some way step into the eyes of the photographer and his or her mind as well and see what the photographer’s focus of attention was.

If we add the concept of the conscious and unconscious mind from psychology, we might think of a blurred background of such a photo as representing the unconscious part of the mind. I have taken photos that by chance, or by unconscious design, incorporate interesting contrasts in the blurred out of focus background. For example the yellow live bloom in Dried Coreopsis, and the branch covered with berries in the background of Oregon Grapes. These blurred images add very important visual parts to each photo, and perhaps suggest important meanings as well. Yet, I did not consciously select these elements while taking the photos, I was focused on the focused subject – the dried bloom or the foreground berries. So each photo captures not only my conscious focus of attention, but also my unconscious focus (or un-focus) of attention!

Perhaps this is the best argument for understanding photography as art. It is not just a portrayal of the external world, but also necessarily a snap shot of the photographer’s mind in the way he or she consciously and unconsciously frames the subject.

Missing my camera alerts me to the function of photography for me in learning to see differently, not only learning the basics of how to take a picture, but also learning to see what I do not see, or what I may unconsciously see. The camera becomes an extension of my eyes, but also allows me to look back in time at a moment and to catch a glimpse of what I may have been thinking, both consciously and unconsciously.