"The Photographer's Mind"

I have just finished reading Michael Freeman's book "The Photographer's Mind" [The Ilex Press 2010] having delved into the first time round and then read it more or less straight through. I only wish I had read it before or during the Course "The Art of Photography" as many of the concepts introduced in that Course have a much fuller explanation in the Chapters of the book and they come with better examples and diagrams. It may be that my earlier reading of the Course material helped in my understanding but I still found myself saying "Oh that's what was meant".

The book gives you a great deal to think about and to pick anyone area for discussion here would give the wrong impression. I can only recommend that a copy should be obtained by any legal means possible and read carefully. It needs more than one reading and probably it will only be later, if not much later, that full understanding will happen. I did not find it an easy read and persistence is required to get through some fairly heavy stuff.

The structure of the book is quite interesting. It starts as though searching for some universal truths about the photographer's mind (although the author constantly reminds you that these may not exist) and ends by showing quite clearly that it is very much an individual thing. I found particularly interesting the reference to "Image Templates" in which the Author discusses how we all carry  mind templates of the photographs that we have a tendency to favour. Whilst these will change over time it will be a slow process as older versions are gradually replaced  by newer interests. Boredom with the old templates seemed to be the reason for these changes. Of course this idea can be applied to fashion in photography generally where innovative methods at first surprise us, then become part of the norm, finally disappearing into the wallpaper. The one comfort for up and coming photographers is that at some time in the future the nature of the wallpaper will be noticed and will become the next thing to do.

One comment that I found jarring was the comment about the phrase "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". It is stated that this is 'obviously wrong'. The justification is that it would be 'meaningless if only one person - one "beholder" - found a piece of art beautiful while everyone else dismissed it". The passage on page 18 goes on "Beauty needs a consensus , or at least the possibility."  Yet I would argue that it is self-evident. Whilst I may be told what is beautiful that does not make it beautiful to me nor would I be persuaded if the next 1000 people told me it was beautiful. Beauty is a concept that can only be understood at the personal level. Photography, of all the art forms, demonstrates the individuality of how we see and experience the world and what we believe to be beautiful. Consensus, like fashion, changes over time so what was beautiful in one period of time is no longer seen to be so. Whilst there are probably many who still see Rubenesque women as beautiful there is probably a larger part of the modern population subject to different influences who would disagree. Nobody is wrong just different.

A book that will become a source of reference over the coming years.