(Photo taken as Amy and I returned from an evening walk on snowshoes this winter.)
A report was published recently about the impact of cameras in how people see the world. Dr. Linda Henkel was interviewed about her experiments in which she asks undergraduates to view a set of objects in a museum, and randomly assigns them to photograph some of the objects, and simply observe others. She found that the students were less likely to remember the objects they photographed than the objects they observed, and she calls the result "the photo-taking impairment effect." In the interview, Dr. Henkel does also describe circumstances in which taking a photograph can aid memory (taking a photograph of a detail of an object; or subsequently reviewing the photographs).
Many of us who take photographs have had moments when we put our cameras down, so that we could "see better," by which we mean experience what we see more deeply or intensely. I have certainly had moments when, as Dr. Henkel's research suggestions, I felt that my camera was "between" me and the real world.
And yet... and yet. When Rebecca and her dear friend Siobhan performed their Senior vocal recital, I was glad that someone else was in charge of video-taping. I took a few photographs afterwards, but not during the performance. Even so, I had the strangest feeling during the evening that it was impossible to take it all in. I was trying to feel the emotional qualities of the performance, and listen to the grace with which it was performed, and sense the intent of the composer, and then was remembering when Rebecca was a little girl, and then wondering what she would be like as she got older ... and I just couldn't do it all. I found that the best I could do was to pay close sequential attention to whatever aspect I was experiencing, and be open to the range of observations as they came. The point, as it relates to photography, is this: all our experiences are "flattened" versions of the multi-dimensional world in which we live. Photography is only one kind of filter.
And then there's my photograph of the dining room in the William Martin House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, in Oak Park on the west side of Chicago:
Only it isn't really the dining room of the William Martin House; it's a photograph of a tiny replica of the room, part of the brilliant collection of "miniature rooms" in the Thorne collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Two apparently identical photographs can depict two very different scenes. And isn't that memorable?
But for me, the greatest virtue of photography has been the way it has changed how I see the world, at least some of the time. Sure, the camera sometimes gets in the way. But other times I see a scene, and become fascinated by the lines, or the differences shown by different angles, or even just the awesome beauty of the world around us. And so it was a few weeks ago, after the clocks had changed and suddenly we had sunlight later in the day. I was leaving my office, looked out the conference room window, and stopped. I could have looked and then left; but instead I spent awhile staring out the window, eventually opening it and taking out my camera. I was wondering, "Can the camera capture the beauty of this scene? Can a photograph convey it to others? Or do you have to be here right now to see what I am seeing?"
