Wire Awry

I have just begun to delve  into Michael Freeman's book 'The Photographer's Mind ' [Ilex Press 2010]  The word 'delve' is chosen deliberately because it is a book that I find I have to read a section then put it down, think through what has been said and then go back and read it again. On page 82 he makes reference to "our hard-wired visual system" a concept that has been dear to my heart for some time not least since I became more serious about photography and took much more notice of other people's work in exhibitions and competitions. Quite often I found myself wondering whether the selectors saw what I was seeing. I became more questioning when I read through the set book for  'The Art of Photography' Course - Graham Clarke's "The Photograph" [Oxford  University Press 1997].

I make the assumption that the term 'hard-wired' is the visual system we are born with as modified through physical changes (loss of an eye; disease or brain damage; old age; etc.) as opposed to external influences that shape our thinking such as cultural influences. Most of us know that eyes and the way that information is processed can vary significantly from person to person. One example is colour blindness of which there are a number of variations. The fact that I wear spectacles and someone else does not indicates that we see the world differently without assistance (and even with given the subjective nature of eye tests. Yet there seems to be a commonly held view that apart from these well known cases we all physically see everything in the same way. I do not believe this to be true.

Human beings are unique and no two (apart from identical twins) are the same. The differences may be subtle but differences there are. Evolutionary theory suggests that we are the product of a series of changes in genetic structure (we are all mutants) with genes that bestow some benefit being continued through the species. Studies of genetic illnesses suggest that we all carry, in some form, an imperfect copy of the genetic structure we should have inherited from our parents. It is a safe assumption that this holds true for the genes that created and sustain our hard-wired visual system. It follows then that in a way that may be marked or of apparent insignificance our visual systems are different. You do not see the world in the way that I do even allowing for cultural differences.

At the risk of over stating the case let us assume for the moment that what you see as 'green' I see as 'blue'. If you could look through my eyes you would see grass as 'blue'. Why then do I say that grass is 'green'. Simply because I have been told that grass is 'green';  the colour has been given a label in my mind so that every time I see something the same colour as grass I will call it green. The label has no physical connection to the colour or more accurately its place in the spectrum of colours. It is learned behaviour. I have no reason to question my view of the world because everyone around me uses the same term to describe the colour of grass or similarly coloured objects. I go through life believing that you see the world in the same colours as I do.  People usually respond by using the traffic light problem and asking me how I know when to stop. Its simple I have been told that a certain colour is 'red' so even if my vision of the world is distorted I will respond to my colour that I have been told is 'red'.

A subtler and more likely scenario that people have difficulty in agreeing on colours is evident in any shopping mall when a man and his wife are discussing the colour of the trousers he wishes to buy.

If this is the case then it is hardly surprising that we react differently to photographs even if we set aside cultural differences. Seeing is a uniquely individual thing and beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. The world may say that something is beautiful but that does not make the individual wrong simply different. Perhaps we need to be a lot less certain what is good or bad and certainly a lot less dogmatic that our view is the right one.