PHOTOGRAPHY ONE

PRECONCEPTIONS

Question: What are my preconceptions?

Where

When

What

How

A. What is a preconception?

1. A photographic preconception is a preformed opinion you have about photography. You may be aware of the preconception; more often you are not.

2. PRECONCEPTIONS take many forms.

a. You might have preconceptions about where to photograph. - Have your ever taken pictures in your bathroom or kitchen, at the supermarket, at the mall?

b. You might have preconceptions about when to photograph. - Have you ever photographed at night, in the rain, at twilight, in moonlight, all night?

c. You might have preconceptions of what and how to photograph - have you ever photographed a shoe, a bottle of cold coke, the stem of a flower and not the flower itself? Do you photograph only beautiful things? Do you think about only beautiful things? Do you always want to talk about beautiful things?

e. It has been said:

"Photography, if practiced with high seriousness, is a contest between a photographer and the presumptions of approximate and habitual seeing. The contest can be held anywhere-- on a city sidewalk, or in a scientific laboratory, or among the makers of ancient dead gods."

f. Until now you have learned form others - your parents, friends and society. Now you must learn from yourself and see for yourself.

g. The Greeks thought that you know everything and are just remembering what you already know. Quantum physics seems to support that theory - The holographic theory of the universe.

1. A holographic image has all info in every particle of it.

B. What is a subject?

1. Most simply put, a subject is what you photograph. In other works, a subject can be anything and anything can be a subject. But few photographers believe that. They impose restrictions as to subjects proper for photography.

2. Instead of photographing things you think you're supposed to photograph, photograph what interests you - what catches your attention or eye.

3. D.H. Lawrence wrote: ".... So much depends on one's attitude, One can shut many, many doors of receptivity in oneself; or one can open many doors that are shut."

4. Have you ever photographed a washcloth, a tub, a tree root, an abstract of leaves?

a. Edward Weston found beauty in a bedpan.

b. Irving Penn in cigarette butts.

c. Pete Turner in trash cans.

C. How should a subject appear in a photograph?

12. RIGHT AND LEFT SIDE OF BRAIN

12.5 Great changes in science are changing the way we see reality.

A. Quantum Physics

1. The rotating electron

2. The disappearing electron

3. The Photon of light that goes through a slit or 2 slits..... How does it know?

4. How do our cells know just what to do as we grow?

5. The Rat experiments

6. The whole is greater than the parts:

a. The Creole languages

b. The ants

c. The one celled animals

13. WE MUST CONSIDER WHAT OUR IDEAS ARE AS TO WHAT A PHOTOGRAPH IS, WHAT A GOOD SUBJECT FOR A PHOTOGRAPH IS, WHERE ARE THE RIGHT PLACES TO TAKE PICTURES, WHEN ARE THE TIMES YOU TAKE PICTURES?