My take realism vs. formalism in photography. Does snap shots capture the world as we see it?
Earlier today I came across an aspiring photographer in one of the photography communities I belong to. While this particular community rarely feature really good photos his set were particularly… thoughtless and thus extremely badly composed. Questioning his thought on a crocked subject and a very distracting background he replied:
“That’s kinda my intent.
Just simple snap shot type style with not much thought if any.
Sometimes I prefer to do that so that I can also capture everyday life in ways that people see it.”
His reply got me thinking: He want to capture the world just as it is and the way we see it everyday, is a snap shot really the way to go? How can you best capture the world just as we see it?
My answer is no, not even close, and this is my take on it all:
In the history of cinema studies formalist and realists have long debated whether cinema is art or strictly a technological process. My personal take on this is film is always art, even if there is no apparent thought behind the images they always consist of different choices. When framing a shoot you not only chose what they contain but also, obvious, but easy to over look, what to leave out. The same must be true for photography.
The camera’s lens is not equal to the human eye and its sensor does not equal our perception. This changes the rules for composing a picture to look as naturalistic as possible. The photographer previously mentioned stated that his goal is to capture everyday life in the way people see it. He claimed to do so by snap shots without thought or sense of composition. However, this is not the way humans see the world or in this case, that particular subject.
The human mind is arbitrary to say the least, this is why, just to mention one example, police witnesses’ memories aren’t entirely reliable. The mind see what it wants to see, every second of everyday it’s constantly selecting sensory information needed to create an entirety. What it sees is not in anyway the universal truth, a yellow car driving by can in hindsight turn blue, four passenger can easily be confused with two, no problem. Your mind simply did not think the other two were important enough to register and remember. The camera captures everything and does not in any way sort or highlight specific information. That’s the photographer’s job. Many great photographers work hard to capture everyday life just as we see it. It is not the same as point and shoot without thought or sense of composition. If fact it’s the complete opposite. Tricking the human perception to see a subject in a photograph the same way as you would in reality is not an easy task.
Just as a mind highlight some information and hide other, the same must be done by the photographer. S/he must decide what to highlight and what to not draw attention to, and take necessary steps to achieve the desired result. In reality we live in a frameless environment but photographs are not and this must be accounted for in the compositioning. All information visually needed has to be available within the frame. The information within the frame can (and maybe even should) stimulate the imagination beyond the picture shown and this without leaving unintentional loose threads (compare with plot holes in movies). Seeing a photo should never make you notice the background, for example, and think: I wonder what that is, if that’s not the effect you’re looking for (but then I’m going to argue that the photo is not meant to resemble real life perception either). Considering all this, it becomes obvious that a snap shot is not the way to go if you want match human perception.
To transfer a feeling, or a perception if you will, it’s especially important for the photographer to analyze why he sees an object the way he does. The information that makes up his visual image of the subject must be accounted for in the photograph. If the subject is crocked, for example, how do you know? It may seem trivial to ponder over, but it’s essential to the result. Maybe you compared it to objects nearby, maybe you could tell because of the horizon. Leaving that information out from the frame of the picture, how will it affect the viewers’ perception of the object? In most cases here, the viewer will find the tilt of the object unnatural and distracting, as they have nothing to relate it too. Maybe, in this case it’s better to shoot at an unnatural angle to get the object to appear more true to life for the viewer, even though it’s not the way it looks in reality. In short, a naturalistic image is not equal to reality, which brings us back to the question about art or technological process. It takes an artist to identify and compose information that makes up the illusion of reality whereas the technical process of snap shooting without thought hardly gives you the desirable result. Preferably, if this illusion is well executed, it will make the viewer forget the medium. The way I see this is that the image is so well composed the viewer won’t feel a need to visually expand the frame, but could (and might even should) be able to do so in his or her imagination. A snap shot not concerned with composition, for example, often have elements in the frame that gives an incomplete illusion and therefore points to the shortcomings of the medium. But I think I will save those aspects for later.
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