A Natural Eye?

skysh4rk said:
Yes, but you can't make use of those areas of the brain to recognise faces innately, is the key, whether blind from birth or not. The research unequivocally shows this. In much the same way, we may also be predisposed to learning language, and have areas of the brain reserved for such, but you still will need to learn the language.

Usain Bolt has physical characteristics that make him well suited to running the 100m, but he must train and develop the skills necessary to exploit those advantages, otherwise he won't go anywhere very fast. It's also important to keep in mind that our training can influence our physiology and that physical characteristic aren't necessarily genetic (although many may be). For instance, many distance runners have enlarged hearts, but they weren't born that way.
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He could go anywhere a damn site faster than me, training or not.

My point is that some people are genetically more predisposed to do particular activities than others, it is not all just leaned, it is a combination of nature and nurture to use the cliche. Some people are colour blind, some people have tetrachromacy. It would be interesting to see if anyone had done a study of the visual characteristics of the eyes of photographers whose work is well regarded.
 
skysh4rk said:
Until someone can answer this for me, I can't see any argument for photography being anything other than a learned skill.
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Biologically speaking we are all wired differently and our eyesight pathways nerves and brain will all be wired and receive and deal with visual input slightly differently from the moment we can see. Does this equate to 'Having the eye', no - BUT a person with fantastically good eyesight and processing powers from birth will appreciate things differently than someone who's eyesight is not as good. The number of rods and cones in the human eye differs in each person and i would suspect that would be genetic ? My mother has perfect vision and so do i , with 20/20 measurements at 45 year old and my mothers at 60 something. So to me there must be some truth in the different abilities of people to see things differently from birth and as you age. Surely the better you can see the world around you the more you can appreciate its photographic potential.
 
Andysnap said:
I think that there is a fundemantal difference between a skill in running and what I'm talking about i.e something far more airy fairy and artistic. There are purely physical reasons why Bolt can run so fast and no amount of training and practice could enable me to beat him but could I with practice, training and commitment be as good a painter as Constable or as good a photographer as Ansel Adams or is there something in the brain or even the soul (sorry didn't mean to bring the soul into it) that allows the more artistic amongst us to be better than the majority?
Obviously this is a subject that cannot be proven, although I think RJ may disagree :), but I suspect that it is in some respects a question of semantics. Do the things that make us who we are, physical, mental and spiritual, amount to more than just a computer like ability to learn, improve and make or do they coalesce into a natural gift for something? :thinking:

I honestly don't know.
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Why would a mental activity, such as being a brilliant painter be different from being a world class sprinter. Your brain is as likely to be affected by your genetic mix as your leg muscles. If you practice at anything, running, playing the piano, photography, you will get better but it takes a unique blend of training, natural predisposition and frankly serendipity to become a "great". If Ansel Adams had been born in Ireland, or even to poor parents, he probably would never have photographed Yosemite.
 
Andrew Davies Photography said:
Surely the better you can see the world around you the more you can appreciate its photographic potential.
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Not sure that this is the case, and there seems to be a reasonable amount of scientific study that suggests the opposite. If your eyesight was so good that you could pick out a small detail your brain could become distracted from the whole image and concentrate on it. It might be interesting to see whether there is a preponderance of pixel-peepers amongst those with perfect eyesight, as the image never matches their vision ;)
 
You don't need bionic eyes to shoot pleasing pictures, its what's going on upstairs that matters, some people are born with that stuff going on already and carry it through life, some aren't and don't....its really that simple.
I dunno what you're all going on about with bionic eyes, the science of measurement and swinging the lead at "work" all day.. :)
 
joxby said:
some people are born with that stuff going on already and carry it through life, some aren't and don't....its really that simple.
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This is how I understood it to be honest and I'm enjoying reading people's opinions on the subject. Personally I've decided to give it another 12 months and if I'm still not enjoying it, I'm going to pack the personal stuff in altogether and just focus on the weddings.
 
That is because I have posed an interesting, thought provoking question which has stirred the minds of the great, the good and the wise in this section of the internet. :D
Thank you Brian for your essential contribution. :)

Andy
 
Andysnap said:
That is because I have posed an interesting, thought provoking question which has stirred the minds of the great, the good and the wise in this section of the internet. :D
Thank you Brian for your essential contribution. :)

Andy
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;) The thread will never have a conclusion...for what's is worth I believe some photographers have the eye, you can get near these photographers by experience but these guys are famous for a reason and of course you can try and copy some of their shots.....it would be interesting to see the beginner's shots and after say the first year of all the well known names we know, also some brilliant amateurs.
 
I've read the whole thread. Despite the science I'm still convinced that some people have a natural eye for a shot. It's got something to do with 'feeling it'..sorry I won't be convinced otherwise.
 
Andrew Davies Photography said:
Biologically speaking we are all wired differently and our eyesight pathways nerves and brain will all be wired and receive and deal with visual input slightly differently from the moment we can see. Does this equate to 'Having the eye', no ...
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Correct!
Andrew Davies Photography said:
Surely the better you can see the world around you the more you can appreciate its photographic potential.
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No, you're confusing different types of seeing - visual acuity doesn't imply aesthetic perception ...
 
skysh4rk said:
There's obviously no point; evidence and reason can't possibly compete with 'gut feelings'.
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I had a hunch you were going to say that.
 
My tuppence...

I was watching a video on shooting portraits and the pro tog produced a cardboard sign. You probably recognise it.

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He asked his subject if they could see the arrow. They couldn't. I couldn't. He was illustrating that we can look at the same thing over and over again and still not really "see" it. I think he was going on about how we look at our own faces differently, but the point is similar. Just as some can see the arrow and some can't, as photographers, we could all be standing at the same spot and take a photo of the same landscape. They'd all probably be slightly different.

I started with an NCFE course on Photography a few years ago (the OP may remember!) with the express intention of improving my artistic skills. I know how to work a camera. The technical aspects weren't that difficult and can most definitely be learned by anyone with enough time and patience. The hard part for me was making that creative exposure that was pleasing for me to look at. I thought I couldn't do that. Education helped. It taught me how to reason with what I was seeing (how to look for the arrow in the logo above). How do define composition. By researching other photographers, I could start to "think" like an artist where before I thought like an Engineer. I can say with confidence that I've improved as a photographer because of this.

The tl;dr version I suppose is that it's probably a bit of both. In my opinion, some people have an eye for it and some people need to practise. I think I have an eye for candids even though I only ever shoot family. Conversely I think I have a lot to learn about Landscapes and I spend a lot of time shooting them!
 
joxby said:
I thought you were gonna bring sum science RJ.....:D
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:D I'ts probably a combo of genetics, DNA and now they say we can have a temporary on\off DNA and then throw in nature and nurture plus how the brain is wired and you will have the answer why we are different.
 
skysh4rk said:
There's obviously no point; evidence and reason can't possibly compete with 'gut feelings'.
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Well, I think peeps can learn all sorts of things, its just some people seem to be prewired at birth to do things naturally with very little teaching
 
skysh4rk said:
Evidence?
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I've been taught maths for years and still can't do it, which btw is more than a minor hindrance in my current occupation.
I have 2 sisters, both mathematical geniuses.....how ??
 
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joxby said:
I've been taught maths for years and still can't do it, which btw is more than a minor hindrance in my current occupation.
I have 2 sisters, both mathematical geniuses.....how ??
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Cos they're female so without any doubt .....WIRED DIFFERENTLY or strangely :confused::D:D
 
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never told anybody this before..
We all went to dance school, till I was old enough to tell my mam where to shove it, during that time I totally splattered the pair of em with my latin american ballroom, tango, quickstep, rhumba and cha cha cha, 3 left feet they had, both of em, the devey school of dancing cried when I left, they were there 6 years and didn't achieve half what I did in 6 months.
But at 15, 1983 ballroom ain't where its at.....oh no....lol

true story, still got the medals.....coulda been a contender....:ROFLMAO:
 
This is a very enjoyable thread! It seems to me a variant of the "nature or nurture" arguments: is it the genes or the upbringing that makes us who and what we are. The answer really seems to be both.

Almost any measurable human (or animal for that matter) characteristic ends up fitting a Gaussian statistical distribution, the old bell curve (exceptions are things like number of eyes, etc, although I suppose that could be just a very narrow distribution!). So for those measurable characteristics, some have more and some have less. What's more, some start with more and some with less. If you start with less and take some actions, you might be able to make up the missing ground. If you start with more, well, you could waste it, but you have a head start. It seems likely that athletes like Bolt started with more, and worked hard to increase that advantage by training.

This seems to apply in other areas than the plain physical. Wasn't there always someone in your school with a natural (or allegedly natural!) flare for mathematics? Someone whose stance and hand-eye coordination and timing allowed them to loft a cricket ball over the stands? Someone who could make art that just shone? And likewise, people who never seemed to get the hang of sport or art no matter how much they tried?

Are we saying that Mozart wasn't a "natural musician"? Sure he was beaten and subject to cruel treatment by his father, but no amount of pushing is likely to get any of my grandchildren composing by the age of 5.

So in the absence of any cited studies to the contrary, I'm leaning towards the truthiness argument here, probably causing RJ to bang his head even harder.

There's something else that's popped into my mind that is tangential but might be relevant. Sorry, I don't have the citation, but I've read of a study about our abilities to make the sounds of human language. You know, French people often have real difficulty with our "th" sounds, Japanese with the "r", many English the Welsh "ll", anyone the clicks in Xhosa etc. I find the French "r" (as in Reims) often very difficult. The question is whether that is a natural characteristic like skin colour, eye shape, hair colour etc. The study suggested that no, every baby has the capacity to make all the sounds. But in the process of learning the sounds of the language around them, and fixing them with familiarity, some of that early flexibility can be lost. It's almost as if the ability to learn those sounds easily has been unlearned (I'm not sure I remember this well, and not expressing it well). Anyway, this bit is in support of the idea that you can start with an ability and lose it by not exercising it!

Finally, in this stream of random rubbish, it was amusing that this thread started about the same time as Guy Tal published a piece in which he talked about two aspects of photography: the technical and the emotional. He wrote "Creative people likely are very familiar with this pattern. The dichotomy between the inspired state of random revelations and that of investing work in turning such ideas into well crafted creations had been described by many artists, philosophers and scientists for millennia. Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche described it as a division between the Apollonian and the Dionysian; Apollo being the Greek god driven by logic, order and reason; and Dionysus the god of intuition, emotion and chaos." Now the ramblings of an 19th century philosopher who seems to have been partial inspiration of Nazism aren't exactly rigorous scientific evidence, but it's a nice piece that seems to bear on this subject, one way or the other. Of course, it's possible that those speaking against the idea of the natural eye are Apollonian, and those looking for truthiness and what just feels like are Dionysian... but I suspect in either case, it doesn't make our "art" any better!

Oh dear, does that make any sense? Should I hit the "publish" or the "delete" button? Probably ought to use the latter...
 
joxby said:
I've been taught maths for years and still can't do it, which btw is more than a minor hindrance in my current occupation.
I have 2 sisters, both mathematical geniuses.....how ??
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Unfortunately, you can't cite that as evidence of innate genius. There are too many variables in play with no controls of any kind to pinpoint any single cause. The research evidence doesn't support the existence of inherent mathematical genius either. Take a read of Matthew Syed's book, Bounce—he has a section in there regarding mathematical 'geniuses'.

Now, I'm not arguing that there aren't physical or mental differences between individuals, I would argue that there definitely are. These differences, however, cannot be exploited or utilised without learning/training/experience.

For instance, as I posted earlier, research shows that we must still learn to make sense of the two separate images being received from our eyes, even though we were born with all of the necessary equipment to do it.

If research shows that we are having to learn even the most basic of tasks (seeing), which we were seemingly born to do as we have eyes, how you can you argue that photographic or sports skills are innate? It just wouldn't make sense.

This doesn't mean that some of us don't have some physical or mental characteristics that could be advantageous for photography, however, but you're still going to have to learn to make use of those advantages.
 
ChrisR said:
So in the absence of any cited studies to the contrary, I'm leaning towards the truthiness argument here, probably causing RJ to bang his head even harder.
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Absolutely killing me here. :eek:

Regarding your comment on Mozart, there's a ton of research in this area to suggest that his musical prowess was anything but completely natural. For a summary of some of that research, check out: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opinion/01brooks.html?_r=0.
 
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skysh4rk said:
Now, I'm not arguing that there aren't physical or mental differences between individuals, I would argue that there definitely are. These differences, however, cannot be exploited or utilised without learning/training/experience.

For instance, as I posted earlier, research shows that we must still learn to make sense of the two separate images being received from our eyes, even though we were born with all of the necessary equipment to do it.

If research shows that we are having to learn even the most basic of tasks (seeing), which we were seemingly born to do as we have eyes, how you can you argue that photographic or sports skills are innate? It just wouldn't make sense.

This doesn't mean that some of us don't have some physical or mental characteristics that could be advantageous for photography, however, but you're still going to have to learn to make use of those advantages.
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I think this sums it up nicely.

It is important to stress that wherever your skills lie on the bell curve, they will not develop without training and practice. I do think though that, when it comes to human traits and abilities, the bell curve is wide.

The only thing I would add, and I think Chris referred to this, is that positive traits and abilities can be easily quashed at an early age. Refer to research into child development for more on this.
 
I'm not citing innate genius, I'm highlighting the disparity between us, despite being siblings, growing up in the same family, experiencing the same things, going to the same schools with the same teachers, I'm still sh1t at maths and they aren't, science and bell curves are not explaining that at all convincingly.
 
The other big factor that has not been discussed, and probably just as well, is human psychology. That very quickly makes things very complex.

Think about childhood motivations, throw in some Freud and some Maslow and......

:eek:
 
joxby said:
science and bell curves are not explaining that at all convincingly.
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What does it not explain? There's an absolute tonne of research exploring sibling differences. The research suggests that your experiences were actually not as similar to your siblings as you think.

Check out: http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/40/3/563.full

A quick quotation from that article:

In this target article we have presented evidence that converges on the conclusion that children in the same family experience practically no shared environmental influence that makes them similar for behavioral traits. In other words, the effective environments of siblings are hardly any more similar than are the environments of strangers who grow up in different families.
​
That doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of how much information is out there on the subject.
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simon ess said:
The other big factor that has not been discussed, and probably just as well, is human psychology. That very quickly makes things very complex.

Think about childhood motivations, throw in some Freud and some Maslow and......
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I have hinted at the psychology, just not very explicitly.
 
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simon ess said:
I'm a bit dim RJ. I like explicit.
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Well, the quotation below refers to psychology:

skysh4rk said:
research shows that even just believing in natural talent has negative implications for your performance
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The mind is certainly capable of preventing us from reaching our intellectual, physical, and technical potential even if we have the intellectual, physical, or technical tools necessary for reaching that potential.
 
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I've found (on another forum) that it's impossible to convince anyone who believes that they don't have an "eye" for a photo that they can be trained by reason alone. Or even evidence from others. More accurately, I've found that I can't manage it. The only way I found was to take one of the doubters through a relatively simple exercise with one of their photos, and show them the elementary "tricks" that could have converted a pig's ear into a silk purse at the taking stage, and showing them that they could actually "see" a photo if they looked in the right way.

The old couplet is still true: "a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still". You can't argue against a gut feeling :(.
 
skysh4rk said:
Well, the quotation below refers to psychology:



The mind is certainly capable of preventing us from reaching our intellectual, physical, and technical potential even if we have the intellectual, physical, or technical tools necessary for reaching that potential.
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There is some evidence that even thinking about doing exercise whilst sitting still has about 30% the effectiveness of actual doing the exercise. So the reverse of the quote could also be true, in my case I often think about doing some exercise, which is why I am only 66% lazy. :D

I would also like to add that this is one of the most enjoyable, enlightening and logical threads I've ever been involved with. Can you imagine the fighting that would have take place anywhere else.... ;)

Andy
 
Getting back to "Natural Eye", surely in part it is about having a natural empathy that is widely shared by others. There are lots of people trying to make it big by writing songs, only a few of them succeed, presumably those that do are those that can write a song with which a lot of people empathise. The successful ones must have had the right mix of musical talent and life experiences that means that they can create songs which a lot of people relate to.

This must be the same with photography. I know that a lot of things I like to photograph are not particularly photogenic and are of esoteric interest so not matter how good I get at photographing them they will never be great photographs, on the other hand some people love to photograph things which other people love to look at. I could learn what is popular and go and take those pictures myself but I know the work would just be imitation, lacking originality.
 
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