Wired Magazine has an interesting online article today about Marvin Heiferman's new book called 'Photography Changes Everything'.
I thought the discussion in the article and the premiss of the book itself would be of interest to Studio Artist users. I included a few choice quotes from the article below that i thought are thought provoking and might lead into some interesting discussions here on the nature of visual perception or creative intent in art and photos.
The book synthesizes the obvious yet subconscious truth that photography has leapt up several meta levels from its traditional definition as a hobby or career. It’s a universal language.
People talk about photography being a universal language but really it’s not; it’s multiple languages. The dialogues you can have with neuroscientists about photographic images are as interesting and as provocative as the dialogues you can have with artists. People have wildly different contexts in which they use photographs — different criteria for assessing them, reasons for taking them, priorities when looking at and evaluating them. It creates incredible possibilities for dialogue when you realize the medium is so flexible and so useful.
People can now look at what happens in your brain when you look at a photograph. Medical imaging — and people’s understanding of what perception is — has got much more sophisticated. I asked neurobiologists what, perception-wise, is the difference between looking at a thing and looking at a photograph of that same thing. They said, ‘No one ever asked me that question. I think we need to know.’ Why is a photograph powerful besides just recognizing in the image, what neurologically connects this thing you look at on paper or on screen to what’s in your head. Those are really big issues when trying to figure out photography’s power. What is the power of images in terms of our psychological response to them?
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