IMAGe IN AcTION

Imagination is a very powerful tool. This faculty of the brain is possessed by all human beings, irrespective of upbringing, culture and socio-economic status. We all have it. Despite this commonality of our basic human faculties, we struggle to define the precise actions that must take place in our species' brain in order for imagination to result.

In its inaccessibility to formal description and with our inability to define and control the process itself, our knowledge of imagination can be compared to our understanding of the physical process of nuclear fusion. We know that fusion occurs in stars, we feel warmth and take delight in what we can see around us, yet we have not discovered how to control the process fully. Similarly with imagination: we glimpse its power, occasionally we stand in awe of an idea, a project, a masterpiece, all the results of an individual's imagination, and yet, we know so little about the process itself. Thoughts pop into our heads, seemingly from nowhere, and grand ideas disappear or get lost from our consciousness just as easily if we do not jot them down immediately. Scientifically and personally it is hard enough to make sense of the 'real' world that surrounds us, never mind the complex, vibrant, often confusing, albeit stimulating, influence of the imagination on our thought processes. The process of imagination is such an integral part of us as humans that even the most thoroughly researched ideas change constantly as new hypotheses are generated and new 'ways of seeing' are imagined. So all-pervading is the imagination that 'to be fully human' has come to be associated in all cultures with a deliberate and difficult effort at personal exploration, an investment in and an investigation of the mind and the imagination.  In the broader community, this exploration, this attempt to find meaning, is usually coupled with the establishment of mythologies and legends.  In more modern times, new-age trends and the use of mind-modifying drugs (taken medicinally or 'socially') too have been added to this process of 'becoming human'.

I have always experienced imagination as imag(e) in a(c)tion, that is, as a set of morphing images traversing my mind. I struggle to think at all without employing sensory experiences. While I engage with the imagination, visual images become indispensable to the process of creative thought. This may not be universal, in the sense that music composers in all likelihood 'hear' their compositions; however, how divorced these note chains are from visual imagery, I would not know. (I struggle to whistle specific notes; stringing together my own, invented sequences of notes and pauses is impossible for me; but when I do hum any tunes, a movie plays in my head simultaneously.) Yet I believe that the changing, dynamic visual cues and fragments of remembered reality we all 'see' in our dreams provide the best clue as to the working of the imagination. Thus imagination becomes images in action.

So why this discussion on imagination in a blog about photography? Photography, the capture of arrangements (the compositions) of objects deliberately isolated from the boundless reality that surrounds us, must engage the imagination. In order to elicit a response from the viewer, a dynamic interplay must take place: a connection needs to be established from the imagination of the photographer, via the image, to the imagination of the viewer. The resulting, captured image, the photograph, must bridge this gap. Thus, in order to become an effective photograph, an image needs to become 'an image in action': it must facilitate the onset of an active process in the mind of the observer that harks back, even tenuously, to the imagination of the photographer. An image that fails to engage the imagination of the viewer remains a picture, a snap, and does not qualify as a photograph. Such an image is inactive; it has not resulted in the necessary, vital activation of the viewer's imagination.

As a means of visual communication, a photograph has to stimulate the imagination: it must allow connections to be established between photographer and viewer, it must stimulate the recipient so that memories are called to mind and re-explored, ideas are revisited and revised, new thoughts are generated and old, forgotten ones re-enlivened. A photograph must impact on the viewer's imagination with enough stimulus to elicit more than just a response of 'wow'; a process of exploration needs to be set in motion before an image can be considered an effective and memorable photograph. The interplay that is established between the two active minds, that of the photographer and that of the viewer, can not, and should not, amount to a perfect mapping of the one mind on the other. Rather, the visual stimuli of an effective photograph will set in motion a sequence of cues in the mind of the observer that may show more or less congruence with the cues that were present in the mind of the photographer and that resulted in the crafting of a specific photograph.

Do photographers really aspire consciously to such philosophical mind games? The answer is 'No' (unless the photographers are pretentious individuals, in which case the images they present are so obvious in their intended message that the pictures have failed as photographs precisely because they do not allow the imagination of the viewer to become engaged; the mapping taking place between the two minds is too close). This 'No' comes in two distinct forms, however. The first variety dominates much of photography in the digital age. It is the 'see and click' variety of picture so dominant in the social media. There is a flood of images that swamps most internet sites, magazines, books and other visual media where the reaction by the viewer can only be "Great" or "Nice". (While we all use such short-cuts often in our (necessarily brief) replies and commentaries to our friends and colleagues in the social media, the recipients of such abbreviated comments should understand that this happens because of time constraints and is not intended as a judgement. I add this caveat so that many fellow photographers whose work I admire do not swamp my inbox with insults because I have replied recently with a short "Great!".)

The second kind of 'No' is more difficult to fathom. I doubt that any great, recognised artists and craftspeople deliberately set out to create a 'philosophical' masterpiece, an end-product that has been explored to an extent where no alternative imaginary interpretations exist. What I do not doubt is that our own unique combination of emotions, thoughts, experiences, passions, do underpin our own 'personal vision'. No-one composes a photograph thinking "I need to place this element more left, so that the right-wingers get the point". Rather, the elements will be placed in a composition in such a way that the meaning, the intended message, becomes enhanced but not explicit. This compositing takes place often without deliberate thinking. This is the 'feel', the superb eye, the 'PING' of an exciting composition. It happens spontaneously and it works, but not without previous experience, not without cerebral effort, not without pre-visualisation on the part of the photographer.

All photographers work their subject. Not just one image is captured, but several. Alternatives are explored. Take a look at the next photographers you encounter while they are at work and take delight in the contortions they subject their bodies to. Photographers move around, fall flat on their bellies, sit, kneel, stand bent over or with straightened bodies, balance on tiptoes and cling with one hand to the most precarious holds in order to gain height. And all of these postures for just one subject. The exploration is not incompetence at finding a composition; rather it is necessary in order to allow the imagination to contribute to the final photograph. Personally I know when I'm losing it - when the photograph will not come together, when the result will be an image, a snap. Instead of being drawn towards the final composition, my explorations become wilder, more disjointed, there are greater leaps rather than smooth transitions. It is at this point that I walk away from the subject knowing that what excited me in the first place was not enough to be wrought into a great image, a memorable photograph. More than that, this inability to connect with that 'PING' is the norm in the majority of cases; superb images are crafted rarely.

Photographers are explorers, not of reality, but of shadow and light, texture and tone, line and shape, rhythm and pattern, and how these visual components will contribute to the final photograph. Most importantly, photographers are explorers of the Self, the unique internal world of the imagination that defines each one of us as individuals. The capture of a photograph involves a process that cannot be described fully for any and all photographers. If photography were that easy a craft, we would all be great. There are genres of photography more closely aligned to pattern than to process, such as the production of identity card photographs, medical or forensic documentation or the capturing of images for scientific publication. Many images from such genres can be beautiful, but they are most often so constrained in their visual expression that they leave very little to the imagination. Less constrained by requirements of what the final image is allowed to express, but just as lacking in stimulation for the imagination, are the plethora of natural history, sport and news images we are exposed to on a daily basis. Usually the images express 'elephant', 'foul', 'bomb blast', and that is all. Again, this is not a criticism; the images are beautiful (or horrific), informative, well constructed, but not that engaging. So be it. We all, as photographers, gather up such images - we would starve without them. However, if we are truthful to ourselves, we would be the first to admit that, as photographs, such images are not successful. Memorable, great photographs require more, and we all know it. Unfortunately, moments of congruence of subject, light, mood and composition happen all too rarely.

I am delighted, no matter the intended communication, when I come across a great photograph: a visual experience that transports me far, far away. I hope that I will always be awed by that singular composition that makes me hear my mind go 'PING!'. I salute the many photographers who achieve, not once, but occasionally, the synthesis that, I believe, underpins great photography: the capture of an image in action.