Ron: Klaus, This is the first day that we have not heavy overcast, so I
haven't been able to test what you experienced. But the first day after
your posting I awoke at 5 AM with the first light and noticed immediately
that I could observe well the shadows in very dim areas of the room, but
not detail in the lighter areas. This is only one situation. Is it
repeatable?
Klaus writes: Maybe the first effect is caused by the brain giving bright
things a priority of perception and allowing the darker parts to take some
place in our thoughts after the highlight analysis is complete. This way
perception of dark tones would be a question of time.
Ron: Maybe. Or perhaps the process that you describe is encased in
another practice: that our eyes are able to first appropriate detail in
the proportionately dominant area of luminosity: either lighter or
dimmer.
Klaus writes: That I could notice detail in the shadows although not
focussing on them (hopefully) makes sense, as those light sensitive
elements in our eyes sitting next to the center of the retina are more
sensitive than those in the middle. Probably there are still other
physiological phenomena working but the above could mean, that a platinum
print would better represent a scene that we caught a glimpse of and that
a silver print would be more suitable for a scene that needed long time
viewing?? If that would be the "rule", it would explain why many prints
become interesting when working against the rule
Ron: We know that the ability to notice objects, to make associations
among them, to automatically, involuntarily choose what is significant to
look at (as photographers, to notice what is in the shadows) goes beyond
visual perception. It is a matter of neurological process--the connection
between the eyes and the limbic system. Clinical case studies of brain
damage (people who have visual agnosia) have shown us that they cannot
"see" what we normally see, such as differences in faces no matter how
many times they see the face. Parts of the face are seen, but
configurations of parts cannot be composed into a whole: they cannot
identify their own faces in a mirror.
The point I want to make is that we are **aware** of what we see by what
we can configure, not just by what is registered on the retina. If this
is so, then the attempt to line up a system of sensitometry to our
physiological system is much more complicated than we first think.
The processes of details and their assemblage into objects bears upon our
discussions over the past weeks: namely the different potentials of silver
gelatin (s/g) paper and platinum/palladium (p/p) paper.
I want to suggest the discussion in the potential of s/g and p/p should
should include the issue of whether we are photographing a scene in
which detail and variety of different objects are prominent. This point
coincides with the rule Klaus offers between the glance (p/p) and the
stare(s/g). I would say that p/p is better suited to images that contain
large masses and s/g to images that have a great deal of detail.
The issue here is not only the number of different things, but also the
way we feel about the objects we see. Going back to the cases of visual
agnosia we know that there is not only a loss of visual associations but
sometimes a loss of emotions associated with what is seen. Sometimes a
person with visual agnosia recognizes a flower, but no longer experiences
the beauty of the flower, though they remember they had earlier felt the
flowers to be beautiful.
Is there a critical amount of detail beyond which feelings become
encumbered, or certain kinds of feelings are absent? I'll go out on a
limb and say that for some alternative processes we need enough but not
too much detail. I think photographers several decades ago understood
this. I've been going through the writings of pictorialists. They say
that in order to create deeply moving emotional scenes you should restrict
the amount of detail.
Differences between s/g and p/p also involves attention to, or effacing of
(taking attention away from), the print's surface. This is a difference
that effects the way the image conveys sentiment. But that discussion is
for another posting.
Klaus suggests:... (Yes, let's keep it complicated;-))
I hope I've done so.
ron