Subjunctive – if it were photographed, then how’d it look?

“I photograph to see what the world looks like in photographs.” – Garry Winogrand

Dusk at the coffee truck long-term parked to serve sippers at the cafe terrace 12/2020 ZIP code 49503

In the days before digital pictures, each shot on the film roll consumed one frame of 12 or 24 or 36 exposures. So the psychological result of this scarcity and expense and finitude was to think twice before committing to the shutter release. By contrast today one’s picture taking is limited only by battery life (but a spare will extend the shooting) and memory card limits (cheaper and more capacious by the year). So as a practical matter those three confinements (scarcity, cost, fixed number of shots) vanish in digital photography.

A person today can shoot a burst of shots without thinking, whereas a film photographer has to change rolls every few dozen exposures (and a sheet film photographer has to make each shot be a prize-winner). So one difference in working method that culminates in shutter release is that digital enthusiasts can respond to the slightest eye-catching subject without worry about depleting the stock of available recording medium. But with film there is a kind of subjunctive mindset: “how would it be,” “what could it look like,” or “should I capture this subject.” Those expressions are classified as conditional or potential statements, but English also has an archaic, poorly used and seldom discussed vestige of the subjunctive form of expressing an idea. LOTE (languages other than English) often have a richer, more commonly used subjunctive by contrast. Here among photographers the approach is to suppose it were true; imagine it were accomplished; accept (temporarily) the proposed situation has taken place already. In other words, a film photographer then and still now approaches possible subjects of composition with the thought, “if it were photographed, then how would it look?,” much in the spirit of the opening quote from prolific roll-film photographer, Garry Winogrand, who died with hundreds of photographed film rolls as yet undeveloped and printed for review.

Imagining various compositions that could be imagined and photographed at this place and time in downtown Grand Rapids at dusk.

So a film photographer might approach this dusk location with coffee and other hot-drink customers placing their orders by glancing at the overall scene, then asking herself or himself “if I were to shoot the picture this way, then how would that turn out” (since the sparkle that catches one’s eye does not always translate well onto film or camera sensor), or “would this be a good photo, I wonder”? Given the limited number of exposures on the roll of film loaded on each camera carried, a consideration –verbally articulated, or as a gut-reaction– normally occurs before committing to taking a picture. By contrast, Digital photographers seldom ask themselves that question, instead leaping from initial visual attraction directly to executing the exposure. That is not to say that digital photographers are condemned to shooting first and asking questions later; nor that a slower pace and deliberateness is exclusively limited to the working conditions of film. After all, a digital photographer with big, clunky gear; or a person dedicated to using a tripod to frame a composition before releasing the shutter is bound to proceed relatively slowly. And among film photographers there have been rapid shooters able to respond to fluid situations. But overall the nature of film versus digital photographer does tend to make the slower photographers more mindful, reflective, and deliberate in composition decisions. For a digital photographer, and especially for a point-and-shoot or cellphone photographer, it is not impossible or improbably to frame carefully, focus deliberately, and edit scrupulously. But to embody the film photographer’s mindset and work within the convenience of digital photography does require added care and much practice to establish the habit of seeing this way.

Thus to all digital photographers out there, let this be a challenge to take up: before falling into familiar point-and-shoot routines, instead ask the subjunctive question “if that it were” then how would the finished photograph look? By considering the subject, whether it is static or in motion, before raising the camera and capturing the scene, the relationship between subject and photographer shifts slightly. Gone is the “grab and run” of digital snapshots, and in its place is quiet study and reflection that may or may not lead to a shutter release. Perhaps this idea of pretending the number of shots is limited and must be budgeted with care is too awkward or troublesome at first, but indeed there are hidden rewards to what one sees and how one sees that come from the slower pace of picture-taking.

For a glimpse of the dusk Outdoor Coffee scene in video form, see https://youtu.be/ZUJe-LsUh_I .

Mirror neurons; developing a taste for light

When one sees suffering or joy, very often there can be a mirroring of that same emotional response reflected in oneself. People laugh more easily when the TV or movie injects a laugh-track. When actors on a stage emote, sometimes some of the audience does, too. And in the case of torturers, there is some research that says the perpetrator feels some of the offense that the victim does. All these kinds of phenomena are based on brain features called mirror neurons: connections, meaning, relevance, and emotional response echoing the external conditions within one’s own self. But perhaps there is some kind of internal resonance not only to people one sees or reads about, but also to some kind of interior response to landscape, light, and ever-changing weather and seasons of the year.

winter light before sunset shining through the window of a door

People have different tastes in food, music, art, and the company they keep. Sometimes these tastes come from parents and place of upbringing, as if by osmosis. Other times these are “acquired tastes” that one learns as opportunities present themselves, or as the person purposively seeks out things that expand her or his range of knowledge and personal preferences. One can cultivate expertise and gourmet delight in the many kinds of coffee, wine, whisky, or just about any other sensory experience. When it comes to noticing and responding to various kinds of light, one’s tastes can be developed from more and more experiences of composing photos for personal enjoyment or for public use.

One’s attraction to light might center on winter light that falls in long shadows and weak power; or the opposite, the contrasty, abundant light of high summer. Perhaps it is the hours near sunrise and sunset: the Golden Hour, the Blue Hour, and darkening into twilight and full night. Others may find their attention drawn to penumbral light, just outside the pool of direct light but still indirectly lit by those strong rays adjacently. Photographers devoted to black and white may train themselves to disregard the patterns and relationships found in color and instead focus on the geometry of the composition: foreground and background, texture and angle, masses of shadow and light. In any case, in the course of accumulating more hours of picture-taking experience and expanding the range of subjects composed, the person’s taste for light may develop into a highly refined ability to distinguish between differing conditions and (emotional) effect. And the person’s appetite for viewing and composing pictures may grow at the same time, too. But how might “mirror neurons” intersect one’s taste in light?

The most obvious relationship between interior responsiveness and developing an interest and appetite of light comes from emotional response. As one chases certain kinds of light, there is satisfaction in finding and recording the subject. This forms a positive reinforcement loop: the more one succeeds, the more one hungers for more success. Another part of this relationship between external sights and internal delight comes from the spark of recognition. The external lighting conditions trigger something inside the photographer – maybe it is analogous to receptors in one’s brain (not for chemicals or micro-organisms; some persons respond more than others, or not at all); or maybe it is these specialized mirror neurons that reflect the external subject in the person’s own mind. Whatever the mechanism may be, (1) tastes can be developed and refined, (2) tastes can grow wider, and (3) appetite can grow bigger.

A related discussion could explore resonance or taste for other things beside light. For example, a photographer working on coastal compositions will develop more refined tastes for taking pictures and for looking closely at the pictures made by others of this environment. Photographers who specialize in dusk or low-light conditions will also develop a taste for these particular compositions. Moving beyond visual matters, perhaps there are mirror neurons that sympathetically vibrate in the presence of nature, of pastoral scenes, or in urban settings. In other words, the relationship with and the emotional response that a person feels in various environments (fearfully so, or in delighted contentment) may parallel the way that light or music or other sensory cues of the external world ring within one’s self.

In summary, a person’s path of development with regard to noticing light and composing pictures with it (‘writing with light’) can be described as “having a taste for light,” a hunger or an appetite for pictures. Part of the growth in one’s tastes at the world’s “feast for the eyes” seems to come from mirror neurons, those internal features that react to other people (and living creatures more generally). Even if those specialized neurons do not directly apply to things like music or light and it turns out that other brain structures are concerned with the emotional response and recognition in light or music, still the example of mirror neurons makes a nice figure of speech to explain the reason why interior response to the environment can grow so that the person’s “taste” for light develops.

Big camera or small affects what you see

mirrorless (APS-C) camera allows bigger photos and more creative controls; cellphone is quick, effortless, always at hand

A few days ago a heavy frost greeted the morning sun on a cloudless December day. Many glittering subjects presented themselves to admire; or if equipped with a camera, then to record and share with others, or to record and admire again and again as the future rolls along. Usually when setting off from home for errands, I try to be sure to have a camera along, just in case something catches my eye. Most often this is a trusty old 2014 model cellphone (Nokia Lumia 635) now unsupported for telephone service, but still nicely making photos, video clips, and light wifi-based browsing or photo sharing. But on this fine frosty morning I decided to put my mirrorless camera around my neck in case a composition of opportunity came along.

How differently I moved through the cityscape with this unaccustomed camera pulling down on my neck, kept warm by tucking it under my coat. Conscious of the fancy optics keeping me company, my look around the streetscape was motivated like a hunter in search of prey. As a result, the unencumbered thoughts and reflections that I am accustomed to when equipped with just the ordinary snapshot cellphone now were traded for concerns for potential pictures with this dedicated, sophisticated interchangeable lens digital camera. And if this APS-C camera comes with certain inhibitions that held me back from the usual roaming thoughts, then it stands to reason that other forms of camera also carry their own predisposing habits of seeing and thinking, too.

Reading through Photography Speaks, 150 Photographers on their Art (Brooks Johnson, Aperture: 2004) the roughly chronological arrangement of picture masters includes a page for Bernice Abbot (1898-1991), who took 300 photos in the bustling city for her 1939 book, Changing New York. Surely the logistics of large-format sheet film camera and tripod would shape, if not determine, subjects able to be recorded in this sponsored documentary project. Elsewhere, there was the revelation in photojournalism made possible by handheld, roll-film photography, such as the Leica in Henri Cartier-Bresson‘s hands, and with numerous contemporaries at the Magnum Photographers’ Cooperative. The form factor of Edwin Land‘s Polaroid camera and its instant film in black and white and later in color opened up many new photographic relationships between the person composing a shot and his or her subjects. Digital cameras by themselves and then later coupled with electronic transmission by cellphone, including several popular ready-made publication platforms of social media, also changed the kinds of things sized up as suitable compositions.

So, depending on your purpose (open-ended photowalk; semi-structured wandering; class project; opportunistic hunt for compositions in special light or weather; or an event with deadline for finished photos) and also according to your relationship to the subject/setting, carrying a big camera or a small one will affect the things likely to catch your eye. There are times when you set off with one sort of purpose, but along the way respond in a different way to the subjects that present themselves.

In any case, as the adage goes, “the best camera is the one that you have with you” (not the one left at home). So it is worth the effort to stop and compose the picture and record it to think about it again in the future. In other words, setting off fully intending one sort of photography will dictate which kind of camera to carry, a big one or a small one, or something in-between. Then equipped with that gear, the range of possible pictures is predisposed in some way (hand-held versus tripod-dependent camera, for example). The reverse is also true: it is not just the gear and the person’s purpose that affect what is seen as a promising subject, but it is also the subject that draws one’s attention that may affect the range of possible interpretations to photograph. Gear dictates the possible shots; subjects dictate the possible shots in some sense, too.

Understanding this interdependence of gear, photographer’s eye for possible composition and interpretation for emphasis or muting, and the views offered by each subject helps a person to appreciate the factors that contribute to the eventual exposure that is captured through the lens. No matter if picture-taking is one’s primary occupation or it is incidental to the path taken on any given day, it is worth knowing that camera particulars can surely affect the relationship of the person to the place and its available subjects.

Seeing with eye versus with brain

Color, geometry, and play of shadow & light appeal to the eye; but so do society and current events appeal to the mind. [macro lens]

Imagination includes at least two senses – what fills the senses at the physical and emotional level, but also what fills the intellect’s hunger for connecting meaning, purpose, and consequences. This frosty morning photowalk passed by the the back of a restaurant that fronts on a busy city center street in downtown Grand Rapids. A few weeks before the sun’s nadir on the winter solstice, the angle is low and the strength of the rays of light is weak. The resulting scene that presents itself is full of interesting angles, planes, textures, colors, and patterns of shadow and light. Those things catch one’s eye when abstract elements of design are what appeal to the person carrying a camera and on the lookout for photo compositions to capture.

The same morning scene carries more than purely decorative arrangement of forms, though, since the social context for late 2020 in west Michigan includes hospital ICU beds approaching full capacity with severe cases of Covid-19. Michigan’s chief medical officer has counseled the governor, and the head of the state’s health department has extended the initial restrictions to indoor dining and other potential virus transmission settings begun in late November now to reach past Christmas day. So the restaurant in this photo and nearby drinking establishments are limited to take-out orders and delivery services. This photo serves as a writing prompt or story hook to talk about the presence, reproduction, and transmission of the virus.

Leaving aside the current events that surround this image, there are other features to describe anthropologically that reveal something about the society and people who are part of it. (1) The graffiti on the blue bin for solid waste removal contractors could be discussed by someone versed in the style and messages placed in plain view, although the exhibition is located along the service access of this back alley with relatively little public viewing. (2) The foreground waste bin for used cooking oil speaks to the volume of food prepared by deep frying in modern restaurant menus and the related national appearance of obesity (oil likely for french fries of various shape, maybe also sticks of cheese, frozen sticks of fish or chicken, florets of cauliflower and heads of Brussels sprout, too). (3) The rooftop satellite dish may be for television services, Internet, or both and this speaks to the presence and importance of entertainment and information to restaurant guests and/or residents who live above the retail space.

In summary, a picture like this is “food for thought.” But that sustenance can be one or both: food for the mind or food for the eye and heart. These two ways to interpret meaning from the scene do not contradict each other since the same composition can convey both sorts of meaning, one for the eye and one for the brain. People’s urge to make meaning of their experiences and the things that they encounter can trend toward the artful appearance of things, toward the sociological significance foretold, or a bit of both and other interpretations besides.

Invisible in plain sight

This article takes the idea of “be a tourist in your own town” as a starting point. According to this way of seeing what is most familiar with fresh eyes, instead of driving several miles away to explore a place that is unfamiliar, or taking passport and camera across national boundaries to discover things that local residents see on a daily basis and already know in a certain way, the idea is to visit somewhere nearby “as if” the streets, sounds, people, and activities belonged to a place not seen before. In fact that may be empirically true: a long-time resident or even a newcomer to a metropolitan area or even a small regional urban center may truly not have seen a particular neighborhood or annual event, since the only exposure is passing through, impressions from (social or news) media reports, or incidental comments from others that act as a placeholder in one’s imagination.

A tourist might frame this large star-shape on the ground , but locals might not see anything remarkable in the place.

A person might follow a daily routine and annual cycle of activity that revolves around a few main routes and a few zones of engagement. All the rest of the town or metro area will be “known” only as a location relative to other places where memories have been planted. In this way a resident might feel unmotivated to spend limited free time and money earmarked for vacationing by simply driving for 10 minutes, or biking or walking a short distance. After all, can the feelings of “vacationing” really come from something that resembles nothing more than doing some errands? As a result, one might feel as if they already know a place, when in fact much of that knowledge is imagined and is not based on the same degree of engagement and interactions typical of a vacationing experience: planning to spend money in ways different to ordinary routines at home, expecting to pay attention more carefully (not navigating the day’s schedule on the auto-pilot used for routine places and tasks) because situations are unaccustomed and the risks/opportunities are unfamiliar, and accepting of other’s advice (and accepting the limitations of one’s own counsel) and willingness to be in a state of “not knowing” and “not in control.”

What happens when a person is “a tourist in one’s own town”? Of course it varies with the level of commitment to the conceit: a person dressing and acting the part really will have new eyes to experience the place. On the other hand, someone begrudgingly playing along with the game may fail to see anything and instead relegate the sights and sounds to be self-confirming, thereby reinforcing their own selective vision prejudging the people, places, and things located there. For the purpose of this thought-experiment, though, let us suppose the person does play the part of tourist in her or his own town. Then the original impressions of the place, its economic trajectory and ethnic genealogies, and its points of pride and local meaning and memories can now be filled in with first-hand sights and sounds and conversations. In place of the vague and surface level blocks of mental space, now the person or persons can gather empirical points of reference: what is here, how did it come to be, how do local people spend free time and what do they seem to value or aspire to. In sum, by playing the role of “tourist in your own town” what once was “fly-over country,” routinely skipped over and invisible in plain view, now is added to one’s personal store of memories and meanings; it is real, it has significance, it matters and is worth caring about.

When it comes to the connection between seeing and picture-taking, there are several ways these things intersect. One is the routine use of cameras in leisure (or business) travel. Pictures are surrogate place-holders or prompts for memories. Take a photo and you have a point of departure for talking about what happened there and then. It is something to share, to study, to compare, to collect, and to reflect on at the time and later in retrospect. A second way that camera and tourism (distant trip or visits in one’s own town) intersect is a form of building a relationship between photographer and place. Not only is picture-taking customary, normal thing to do (above), but it invites the person to do more than spectate and instead to participate in a limited, well-defined way. Fellow tourists will see the camera come into position and assume the person is documenting self (selfie) or subject at hand. Locals will see the camera (cellphone or point-and-shoot for casual use; dSLR or bigger for professional or enthusiast) and pigeonhole the person and be willing to accept a certain scope of behaviors that locals themselves might not do. A third way that a camera invites the person to see a place filled with potential subjects (as an outsider or tourist sees) rather than as an ordinary and unremarkable place of normality, routines, and obligations (as a local resident sees) is that putting viewfinder to one’s eye literally puts a frame around things, separating them from the adjacent physical and social context. The effect from isolating a scene from its surroundings with a frame is to highlight, to shine a spotlight, or to put a bow on the subject, imputing meaning and recording an exposure of it. In other words the camera allows a photographer to make visible what is there in plain sight to locals and visitors alike, but which otherwise may go unnoticed from one day to the next. Subjects that are available to view all the time seem to be invisible to those who see them day in, day out.

Another way to see this different vision of outsiders and locals is what happens in the first minutes or hours of coming home from an extended period out of town. For a few moments the old streets, activities, and residents sometimes take on a disorienting sense of NOT being one’s own home ground. Instead, like the shreds of a vivid dream in the minutes of waking up, those buildings and the landscape bear the quickly fading traces of someone else’s place, not one’s own. So just for a few moments, if paying attention, one can get a glimpse of what the place looks like in the first impression of a tourist or other stranger who visits the place.

Similarly, in a parallel thought experiment to the “be a tourist in your own town” example, it is possible to imagine a documentary-maker or ethnographic field researcher coming to one’s neighborhood to make a portrait of the place and its people. While both the local resident and the outsider may have perfectly healthy vision and agree on everything visible around the place, what seems significant, valuable, or fraught with meanings will sometimes differ: the trained observer of social life may see things that the local person is blind to. The reverse is true, too: what is glaringly obvious (point of pride, or source of frustration) to the local resident may pass by the outsider’s vision and thus not rate a photo or video clip. In short, invisible subjects will always lie in plain sight, seen only to people with local knowledge or the reverse – invisible to locals but clearly seen by outsiders, be they tourists (of one’s own town, or distant visitors – virtual or in-person travelers) or be they professional observers like the people who make documentaries in print or visually.

Corollary: if the role of documentarian is the chronicle a subject, then there is a chance that a local resident can gain some distance from the daily familiarity and taken-for-granted relationship to the local cultural meanings and social landscape by role-playing this professional observer position and drawing up a shot list. Making a wish list of pictures to take and video clips to record is a rudimentary way to articulate the subject into manageable, bite-sized pieces. The reverse role-play can be valuable, too: a tourist or outsider observer can use powers of imagination to suppose that they have been temporarily adopted as a life-long or honorary resident; a person granted “local knowdege” in an instant.

Brighter than what

The last hour of afternoon light, 3 weeks before Winter Solstice, the light is scarce, so its scattered appearance seems super bright.

It is hardly a fresh insight to say that viewers interpret the light relative to the surrounding conditions. A single candle seems very bright in an utterly dark room, but the same candle in broad daylight is hardly noticed. The same is true of seasoning in food (putting sweet and sour together allows each to enhance the other), plot development in movies (good or bad conditions of the protagonist are rated each relative to the other), shadow in juxtaposition to light, red color in relation to green, or symphonic quiet passages relative to crescendo sequences.

The afternoon light recorded in this photo prompted me to wonder at the intense luminosity of pre-winter blue in the northern hemisphere at 43 degrees north latitude: why should this same patch of sky change as the position of the sun moves lower to the horizon in the run-up to the winter solstice? Probably the physics of light, the nature of the Earth atmosphere and seasonal axis tilt, and the way human brains interpret light by relative contrast to adjacent subjects all together contribute to this sense of bright skies in the late afternoon view. But extending this mode of perceiving light to the wider arena of seeing the world of one’s mind, what does it suggest?

Given the way that a subject’s boundary definition, its perceived presence, color values, reflectivity, and overall look can be affected by the surrounding frame where it appears, it makes sense to think that the same effects do affect concepts, arguments, logical exposition and persuasive presentations, too; that is to say, the meaning of a topic is colored by what occurs just before encountering that subject matter. Your frame of mind had been adjusted to topic X and remained in that position at the moment of meeting topic Y. Furthermore, the standpoint adopted with topic Y will then carryover, at least momentarily, into the next topic that comes along. An alternative sequence of mental events would interrupt the carryover effect by introducing a distraction, much like the multi-course meal is broken up between sessions by means of a “palette cleanser” such as a morsel or two of mild-flavored melon. Professionals who depend on their nose and tasting senses (wine evaluators, coffee judges, whisky buyers, chocolate buyers, perfume merchants, et cetera) understand this need to refresh their critical senses between sessions. Probably movie reviewers, too, know it is valuable to take a break between screenings to avoid carryover/latency feelings that may color the new subject when it is seen in light of what came before it.

It seems like a big stretch of the imagination to go from the perception of the above skies in the photo being unnaturally bright to the world of brokers judging coffee, but by such jumps of the mind do metaphors allow people to branch into new and unexpected, sometimes reverberating poetic, ways. So far, this ability to leap sideways in surprising figures of speech is one thing humans continue to beat machines at; long may it remain this way!

Standpoint & figure-ground relationships

Right-hand photo shows uneven horizon, but a step further right produces the alignment in the left-hand photo, 12/2020.

A compact nugget of lens wisdom encapsulates today’s essay,

[William Albert Allard, photo tip] “The difference between a nice picture and a really fine one is often a matter of inches -bending your knees a bit or shifting to the right or left. Move your vision 6 inches and you can make a tremendous change.”

National Geographic photography Field Guide, (second edition) secrets to making great pictures by Peter K. Burian and Robert Caputo (2003), page 283.

The fireplug photos, above, illustrate the relationship of figure (hydrant) and ground (house outline in the distance). A lot of ink has been spilt to explore the figure-ground relationship in paintings, and by extension, other visual arts like block printing, photography, sculpture siting, and stagecraft (blocking of actors in relation to scenery, props, and sight lines of fellow actors). As the observer’s position changes, so do the lines that connect the foreground to the middle and background. And while there is no mystery to the physics of optical perception here, something more than visible light patterns is affected.

Owing to the big appetite of humans to seek meaning in experiences, shapes, patterns of shapes, and relationships between shapes – indeed an appetite so immense as to inject meaning when none is intended or existing of its own accord – something happens when the subject in the near ground shifts in relation to the background. The eye, and by extension the mind, derives meaning from the relative positions of each element: when they overlap some connection and maybe even a causality is suggested or suspected. When there is no visible connection, then no meaning is implied; at least to start with. In other words, visual overlap or proximity seems to suggest a relationship so that something impacting the one subject will somehow also transmit to otherwise touch the other subject, as well. Even when a physical separation between foreground and background can clearly be seen, so long as the observer’s standpoint puts them in visual (compositional) relationship with each other then the observer is predisposed to grouping the two subjects together, even if only at the surface level.

Abstracting this physical tendency to make meaning from the appearance of relationship in time and space, it is possible to see something similar in habits of thinking more generally: when one idea is brought into proximity to another idea, then some sort of meaning, association, or relationship can be formed in the mind, if not in actual operation in the world. As the photographic example shows, above, when the observer takes just one step to the side (or moves closer or the reverse, moving farther from the subject), now the apparent alignment of foreground subject and background changes, sometimes adding confusion to the composition and other times adding simplicity or visual interest to the composition. The same thing can be said for habits that frame one’s thinking: by changing one’s standpoint or point of view, the relationship of figure and ground is altered. The result may improve the grasp of the matter; or it may do the opposite, distracting from the matter at hand by confusing two separate matters into an invented jumble.

Once more the parallel worlds of lens and minds can be seen at work in this essay. So the next time you seize upon a subject to frame and move into a position that shows the foreground in relation to the background, consider how a new standpoint just one step left, right, forward, or backward affects the composition.