“Photography, if practiced with high seriousness, is a contest between a photographer and the presumptions of approximate and habitual seeing.” ~ John Szarkowski
IN THE PAST, I HAVE MENTIONED IN A NUMBER OF BLOG ENTRIES that one comment I have repeatedly heard, re: my photographs, is, “I don’t know why I like this photograph but I do.” Truth be told, I consider this comment, or variations thereof, to be the highest form of praise I have ever heard about my work inasmuch as I take it to mean that I have won the contest, aka: the battle against “the presumptions of approximate and habitual seeing.” Let me explain….
Habitual seeing, aka: "automatization," deadens the senses, causing objects and experiences to become overly familiar and lose their sensory impact–consider this; if you remember the feeling you had when seeing* / experiencing something for the first time and compare it to the feeling you have when seeing / experiencing it for the ten thousandth time. It’s sorta like the adage, “familiarity breeds contempt” inasmuch as, if not “contempt”, it certainly promotes taking things for granted.
In the photo making world I consider habitual seeing to be something akin to making and viewing the “standard”–lets write, example wise–landscape photograph depicted in the by-the-rules, cliché ridden, ain’t nature grand manner for the 10 thousandth time. To my way of thinking, if the goal of art is to create the sensation of seeing (I believe it is), and not merely recognizing things, such habitual seeing is a complete and utter failure.
RE: seeing v. looking ––to look suggests an observation of surface, it does not suggest any further depth than that. To look suggests both the beginning and end of the action, whereas to see suggests the beginning of a process of investigation. Investigation of a photograph, an involvement which explores reactions that differ from those derived from simple observation, is the process that can lead to an understanding, aka: a perception, of what a photograph might be about, that is, beyond that which is literally depicted.
That written, and wishing to avoid going all psycho-babble / art speak, I believe it is possible to create a simple equation for perceiving what a photograph might be about, aka: what a photographer is trying to express that lies beyond the literally depicted referent:
looking + perception = seeing
RE: perception – def: the state of being or process of becoming aware of something through the senses. It should go without writing that, in the photography domain, the senses that need to be pricked on the road to seeing are the visual senses. iMo, it makes complete sense to write that the more you look at a photograph (engagement), the more you might perceive / see. And, as the process of perception is, in art, an end in itself, that process / engagement must be prolonged.
So, what does it require to prolong engagement with a photograph? For me, the answer is the Conceptual Enstrangement Principle (Viktor Shklovsky's notion of Ostranenie, Art, as Device (1917) – the principle of forcing the viewer out of habitual, automatic perceptions by presenting common objects or situations in unusual ways. By making the familiar strange and slowing down perception, enstrangement forces viewers to truly "see" objects rather than just recognize them.
Therein is the reason why I cherish the question", “Why did you make a picture of that?” My photographs tend to incite a question that can lead a viewer to to prolong their engagement with a photograph in the cause of determining what the hell it is that causes them to like it. That question and subsequent engagement results from the a viewer’s confusion / consternation of being intrigued by the literally depicted referents in my photographs. Ya know like, say, why am I excited, or, why is my visual sensory apparatus pricked by the dirty kitchen objects in a kitchen sink?
All of the above written, iMo, if a photograph does not give rise to the question of why?, it most likely ain’t worth any more than the paper it is printed on.
*I mention “seeing” cuz I am referring to the medium photography, a visual art, but the same idea could apply to any sensory experience.
