TRANSPARENT PHOTOGRAPHY
In an article in Psychological Science, as reported in the Times, researchers found that taking photos serves to increase your memory of the experience. The studies found that taking photos increases your engagement with what you are experiencing. Subjects who took photos of things had a more complete memory of the object compared with those who did not.
I used to think that traveling with a camera diluted the fresh and exciting things that you were seeing and experiencing. I used to think, if I pull out a camera and take a photo of it, the moment will be ruined. I used to think that a photographic reproduction of the scene I am looking at will destroy the uniqueness; the meaning will be fragmented.
As the definition of Transparent Drawing has evolved, photography has become absolutely integral. So it was good to learn , first, that someone thought this topic important enough to do a study. And second, it was good to learn of the visual amplification effects of taking a picture.
They also found that the same memory effect applies to taking of photographs in museums. Your memory of that object is stronger when you take a photo of that piece of sculpture, rather than just standing there looking at it.
The study does say, though, that subjects who took photos were auditorily compromised. That is to say, their memory of what they heard, when they were taking photos, was reduced. While that makes sense, we have addressed the importance of maintaining an awareness of the mileau surrounding what you are photographing. We have discussed maintaining a situational awareness as you photograph. So it is possible to accept auditory input as you take your snapshots. And it is possible to incorporate the auditory into the memory of photographing. Just be sure to keep your other senses open as you snap away.
I took the photograph above at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014. The piece is by Choi Jae-sung, who is a Korean potter working in the buncheong tradition. I guess what attracted me was their drawing on the piece so as to remove glaze, thereby creating the design. (And, yes, this is some form of reverse drawing, given the analogue action removes a tone, rather than applying it.) The vase was behind a glass case amidst other ceramics in a rather ordinary display.
I made my interpretative Transparent Drawing of the vase a year later. I still remember seeing the vase and being moved by it. I still remember the general environment around the display. And I believe that the drawing above could easily serve as a starting point for a built form and interior environment.
There have been other pages which recorded museum photography and subsequent drawing. See Dogon Mali at AGO, for example. See Museum Procedure. Or how about Mandolin and Clarinet, or Your Camera in MOMA.
It’s great to see studies like this. And it is great to learn that photography, as an integral component of Transparent Drawing, is valid.
- Yin, Stephen. 2017, August 18. Taking Photos Won’t Take You Out of the Moment. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/science/living-in-the-moment-taking-photos.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Farts&action=click&contentCollection=arts®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=35&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0
Really enjoyed this post. The thought that goes into a photo is what engages me. In college I backpacked through Europe with my Grandfather’s Argus C3, a magnificent, fully manual 35 mm camera from the 50s. In a month of travel I shot just 6 roles of film. Developing costs were a consideration, plus it took time to set the aperture, focus, and shutter speed. Earlier I had taught myself the basics by reading the little manual that came with the camera, and keeping a notebook of settings, often taking the same shot a couple times to get a feel for the differences.
There were very few bad photos in that batch, and I still treasure the album from that long-ago trip. Even when I wasn’t taking photos, I was always on the lookout for a great shot. It’s almost certainly the photographic mindset, rather than the photography itself, that allows us to engage more fully with our environment.
Another thought… Years ago I read about an experiment where high school students were given a few pages of material to study. Half were told that they would be tested on the material at the end of the study period; the other half were told that they would be teaching the material to a third group. At the end of the study period, both groups of students were given the exam. Those that prepared to teach had significantly higher scores than those who were consciously preparing for the test.
How is this relevant? When we take photos we likely expect to share them with someone, in a sense we hope to “teach” our friends, families, or colleagues what we learned in our travels. Perhaps the photographer’s mindset and the teachers mindset are similar.