Previsualization

I look through my viewfinder when I take photos, that's visualisation, pre-visualisation, whatever you call it. More often than not, if I think through what I want the final photo to look like too much the photo ends up boring, or I end up missing the scene altogether. For me, better to follow my instincts.

I learnt photography by looking through my failures and successes, and those of others. Then I think about why the ones that worked did, make a mental note of it, then forget it. If I know I'm going into a particular situation, same thing; think about what could work and then forget it, I don't want to be so busy looking out for what might work that I don't notice what's actually happening. Second guessing myself as I take a photo doesn't work for me, having a project is a different thing.

I'm talking about what I feel works for me, which obviously isn't for everyone. Whether it actually works for me is up to whoever's looking.
 
A lot of the recent discussion here seems to suggest that either one plans and sees the final result at exposure or else must be operating completely at random. Well, this is so simplistic and such a misunderstanding of the process, that I would wonder if anyone that holds this view ever tried to make photos at all. There is always some element of chance at work in photography and No photograph can be made completely at random.

It is not a contradiction to say that you can hone your craft, select your subject carefully, pay close attention to framing and when to press the button, etc., but still not know exactly what you will get.

Cheers,
Gary
 
I think I linked this here once before, but this podcast has a interesting little segment with photographer Henry Wessel discussing the importance of keeping the mind clear while photographing. (It is the second of three segments in the podcast, so if you don't want to watch the others, just scroll ahead about one third through to Wessel's)...

http://www.sfmoma.org/podcasts/2007/february/sfmoma_artcast_feb07.m4a

Cheers,
Gary
 
Ansel Adams was a practitioner of previsualization. It must work, judging by his world acclaimed photos. I've read some of his books lately, and the knowledge in them is pretty revolutionary. He just seemed to know so much, and none of it was from accepting what others said. He went out and tested all of his ideas and techniques in a very through manner, and he was able to write about it in a clear, concise way. I've learned a lot about exposure from him.

My take on previsualization is it is wasted on those who do not have a fundamental understanding of how photography works. Once one understands the concepts from working experience, only then is it possible to apply the technique. In the end, it's about knowing how your materials work in different lighting conditions, and having the skills to get the shot you want.

When I was studying painting and drawing I wondered why abstract painters had to have such fundamental knowledge of anatomy and realism. It soon became apparent that it's all related. The artists does not start where Van Gough ended (a continual source of frustration for the beginning student), one starts where Van Gough started, and hopes to find a unique way of expression only after many years of work and failure.

Previsualization is a tool for times when you aren't rushed, and it is mainly for the MF or LF shooter. Obviously it won't work for street photography! Also good for portraits. I suspect digital shooters would roll their eyes and just fire off a gazillion shots in the hope that one will work out.
 
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Gumby said:
You're possibly rushing things a bit fast... infinity isn't over yet! :p
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"What do you really get when you leave six monkeys alone with a computer for a month? A colossal mess! Researchers at Plymouth University in England reported that primates left alone with a computer attacked the machine and failed to produce a single word. According to Brian Bernbaum, “a group of faculty and students in the university’s media program left a computer in the monkey enclosure at Paignton Zoo in southwest England, home to six Sulawesi crested macaques. Then they waited” (2003). The results were far from what evolutionists had hoped to see. Researcher Mike Phillips noted the first thing to happen was that the “lead male got a stone and started bashing…it” (as quoted in Bernbaum, 2003). He went on to note “another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard.”
 
myoptic3 said:
Previsualization is a tool for times when you aren't rushed, and it is mainly for the MF or LF shooter. Obviously it won't work for street photography! Also good for portraits. I suspect digital shooters would roll their eyes and just fire off a gazillion shots in the hope that one will work out.
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No, you can't rush the shot and previsualize. However, I have reservations about previsualization not working for street shooters. I think it depends on what kind of street shooting you do. I agree that it probably won't work for opportunistic shots, unless your subject is asleep, but then there are those shots where you lie in wait...

With large format photography it is pretty much an absolute necessity; I'd have to question the sanity of anyone with less money than Bill Gates who is using a large format view camera for taking snapshots. It is no coincidence that in the days before small format photography, most street photographers tended to be the idle rich.

With medium format cameras a little previsualization is highly advisable. If you shoot a lot, you'll be declaring bankruptcy in very short order. Only with small format cameras and especially digital cameras can you get away with casually shooting hundreds of photos as a matter of course (and even with the small format film cameras those hundreds of photos can pretty easily translate into hundreds of dollars).

I think the "machine gun" approach seems to be pretty much confined to those who have digital cameras, to those whose type of photography is highly opportunistic, and to those with more money than sense.
 
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gns said:
A lot of the recent discussion here seems to suggest that either one plans and sees the final result at exposure or else must be operating completely at random. Well, this is so simplistic and such a misunderstanding of the process, that I would wonder if anyone that holds this view ever tried to make photos at all. There is always some element of chance at work in photography and No photograph can be made completely at random.

It is not a contradiction to say that you can hone your craft, select your subject carefully, pay close attention to framing and when to press the button, etc., but still not know exactly what you will get.

Cheers,
Gary
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Try that approach with one of these:

http://www.photographers1.com/SaleImagePages/8x10FieldCamera.html

You had pretty darned well better know what you are going to get.
 
My take on previsualization is it is wasted on those who do not have a fundamental understanding of how photography works.
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Thank you very much, and now you can go back to sit on your rocking chair and smoke your pipe filled with cheap tobacco.
 
Quote:"Try that approach with one of these:"

Try what approach? Where in the post you quoted did I mention any given approach.
If you read my earlier posts, you would see that I clearly don't think of any approach or method as better than another.

Gary
 
myoptic3 said:
Ansel Adams was a practitioner of previsualization. It must work, judging by his world acclaimed photos. I've read some of his books lately, and the knowledge in them is pretty revolutionary. He just seemed to know so much, and none of it was from accepting what others said. He went out and tested all of his ideas and techniques in a very through manner, and he was able to write about it in a clear, concise way.
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This is simply untrue.

He was a great photographer before he devised the Zone System, the vast majority of which is simply a restatement of well-known principles of sensitometry, i.e. it owed almost everything to what others said, dating back to Hurter and Driffield (the original H&D) in 1890.

The only original part -- a work of genius, it is true -- is the naming of Zones.

Finally, his books are not always all that clear and are almost never concise. Basic sensitometry is nothing like as difficult to master as the Zone System, and as the Zone System (barring the naming of Zones) is a subset of sensitometry, this is the wrong way around.

If the Zone System works for you (or anyone else), great. Otherwise, you just don't need it -- as witness the numerous great photographers who didn't/don't use it but rely on experience, rules of thumb, latitude, self-masking (in printing-out processes) and, yes, basic sensitometry.

Cheers,

R.
 
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Is previsualization really the right word? NO!

Is previsualization really the right word? NO!

I've had enough of the St. Ansel bashing. Previsualization isn't even a word. Preconception is: an opinion formed before obtaining adequate evidence, especially the result of bias or prejudice.

I think composition directed (not just influenced) by proven technique and experience the topic. The leading article is a fine 'how I do it', nothing more.

As far as smoking goes; can one have nicotine stains on one's under pants? I can preconceive that, but I can't previsualize it.
 
honestly, I fail to see what the fuss is about. Think about what you are shooting before tripping the shutter. Wow, what a concept :/
 
gns said:
Quote:"Try that approach with one of these:"

Try what approach? Where in the post you quoted did I mention any given approach.
If you read my earlier posts, you would see that I clearly don't think of any approach or method as better than another.

Gary
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Try ANY approach not involving a very significant degree of previsualization with a camera that has five more controls (rise, fall, swing, tilt and shift) that you have to know how to use in order to get anything decent from it, that has built-in inherent limitations that make it probably the worst possible choice for anyone practicing any kind of impulsive photography, and that uses film that costs $300+ for a box of 100 sheets.
 
FallisPhoto said:
Try ANY approach not involving a very significant degree of previsualization with a camera that has five more controls (rise, fall, swing, tilt and shift) that you have to know how to use in order to get anything decent from it, that has built-in inherent limitations that make it probably the worst possible choice for anyone practicing any kind of impulsive photography, and that uses film that costs $300+ for a box of 100 sheets.
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I see what you mean, but there is also the question of internalizing visualization (I still don't see what 'pre' adds) and being familiar with movements.

AA's famous 'Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico' was as close as you can get to a grab shot with an LF camera. If you use ANY camera enough (LF, MF, 35mm or even digital), then you have an increasingly good idea of what it will do. I would not hold myself out as being a second AA but I can take an 8x10 inch portrait (with movements) a LOT faster and better than I could when I started, and I don't have to think too much about which movements I need when making architectural shots on LF either.

Then again, that's over three decades' practice. When I got my first 4x5, over a third of a century ago, I was flailing about with very little idea of what I was doing.

Cheers,

Roger
 
Fallis,

Do you read peoples posts before you respond or do you just like to hear yourself talk? As I said, from my posts, you can see that I do not advocate any method or speed of working over any other. I simply stated that I don't believe you can really see (in all it's entirety) the finished print until it's in front of you.

Maybe the phrase "In all it's entirety" is key here. You use the phrase "Significant degree of.." which doesn't sound like the same thing to me. It doesn't sound like complete previsualization. I don't know. I suppose my 80 year old mother can previsualize her photos. If her grandchild's smiling face is in in the center of both her viewfinder and her print, then she has previsualized her picture successfully (to the extent of her needs). But if you accept that in a good photograph, everything is important, that every element must work to support the whole, then I think you have a different story.

By the way, did you even listen to the short podcast I linked? It's just a little tidbit, but it offers some interesting counterpoint to the idea that one must think everything through beforehand. And it is from an impressive source, great photographer who also happens to have been teaching photography for decades.

Cheers,
Gary
 
gns said:
Fallis,

Do you read peoples posts before you respond or do you just like to hear yourself talk? As I said, from my posts, you can see that I do not advocate any method or speed of working over any other. I simply stated that I don't believe you can really see (in all it's entirety) the finished print until it's in front of you.

Maybe the phrase "In all it's entirety" is key here. You use the phrase "Significant degree of.." which doesn't sound like the same thing to me. It doesn't sound like complete previsualization. I don't know. I suppose my 80 year old mother can previsualize her photos. If her grandchild's smiling face is in in the center of both her viewfinder and her print, then she has previsualized her picture successfully (to the extent of her needs). But if you accept that in a good photograph, everything is important, that every element must work to support the whole, then I think you have a different story.

By the way, did you even listen to the short podcast I linked? It's just a little tidbit, but it offers some interesting counterpoint to the idea that one must think everything through beforehand. And it is from an impressive source, great photographer who also happens to have been teaching photography for decades.

Cheers,
Gary
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I saw the podcast and was, ... well, ... less than impressed. The photos shown there look like the worst examples that wind up in my cull pile -- and yes, I'm serious. I can't even figure out why he would bother to take most of those. I did like the photo of the photographer, but that one was at least fairly well done, so I don't think he took it. I still think you can't really be creative without using your mind; it takes effort, and quite a lot of it. I also think his presentation contains what has got to be one of the biggest of the "big lies" of photography: He says that the first time you look at something it looks different, but when your mind "gets in the way," it looks like what everyone else sees.

I truely believe that is utter and obvious nonsense, and it is so obviously self serving that I believe it is also an obvious attempt at justifying his snapshots as well. I think the exact opposite of what he said is true. The first time you shoot something, if you are shooting casually, that is what everyone else sees. It is what pretty much anyone will see at a casual glance. When you really LOOK at it, take time to study it, turn it over in your mind and think about how best to show it, and then do so in such a way that it reveals not only how you see the subject, but does so in such a way that you have put your mark on it as well, only then are you doing something that is creative, is unique and is seriously interesting.
 
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Fallis,

For all the talk about creativity, you really seem to be quite close-minded. I've repeatedly maintained that I don't believe one method of working is inherently better or worse than another, and that it is the results that count. With that in mind, I offered a link to this teacher and photographer's interesting views as a contrast or alternative to what a lot of people have posted. Your response to it is that it is "Utter nonsense", "Self-serving" and the "Exact opposite" of truth.

On top of that you are able to judge his work, likening it to the "Worst examples that wind up in my cull pile", based on viewing a few tiny jpegs in a 2 minute quicktime video. If you are right, I really need to see your work sometime.


Cheers,
Gary
 
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