The Imagination Gap by Brian Reich

Author:Brian Reich
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781787142077
Publisher: Emerald Publishing
Published: 2017-02-24T16:00:00+00:00

The Thinking Photographer

The concept of pre-visualization in photography is where the photographer can see the final print before the image has been captured. Though he was not the first to talk about the preparations a photographer must make to ensure a successful image is made, Ansel Adams is widely credited with defining and explaining the importance of visualization. In his first book, Modern Photography, 1934–35: The Studio Annual of Camera Art, Adams wrote:

The camera makes an image-record of the object before it. It records the subject in terms of the optical properties of the lens, and the chemical and physical properties of the negative and print. The control of that record lies in the selection by the photographer and in his understanding of the photographic processes at his command. The photographer visualizes his conception of the subject as presented in the final print. He achieves the expression of his visualization through his technique—aesthetic, intellectual, and mechanical.

And in his Autobiography, he expanded on this idea:

Visualization is not simply choosing the best filter. To be fully achieved it does require a good understanding of both the craft and aesthetics of photography … The visualization of a photograph involves the intuitive search for meaning, shape, form, texture, and the projection of the image-format on the subject. The image forms in the mind–is visualized–and another part of the mind calculates the physical processes involved in determining the exposure and development of the image of the negative and anticipates the qualities of the final print. The creative artist is constantly roving the worlds without, and creating new worlds within.16

Ansel Adams was talking about imagination, and the ways that photographers must use their imagination in their work. “Pre-visualization is imagination” Jamie Rose, an award-winning photographer and head of Momenta, told me before reeling off a series of questions that she counsels new and experienced photographers alike to consider when setting up for a shoot. “Why don’t we do it that way? Wouldn’t it be great if we could take a photograph that looks like this? What is the purpose of the image and who is going to look at it? How am I going to frame it and what camera settings do I need to capture the idea? Making a good photograph requires more than a good camera or being in the right place at the right time.”17 Rose says that photographer will always put his or her own personal perspective and talents into an image, and, more than anything, “that requires imagination.”

The same concept of pre-visualization applies to acting. Sarah Stiles, who was nominated for Tony Award for her work in Hand to God told me “my work is 80–90% imagination. There are other words we use — we talk about particularization a lot, the idea of recalling things that have happened to you that are similar or give you the same emotion that a character needs at a certain point, even if it’s not the same situation exactly.” Stiles said an actor can then

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