Photographic seeing

Photographic seeing is a term encountered in modern critical writing about documentary and fine art photographers and photography.

For László Moholy-Nagy seeing as a photographer meant "the training of the eye" that is engaged in by a conscious and reflective photographer, a training done within the framework of a personal photographic "discipline of vision". The term was used by Edward Weston in his essay "Seeing Photographically" ("The Complete Photographer", Vol. 9, No. 49, pp. 3200-3206, 1943). Today, readers are most likely to encounter the term as it was used by Susan Sontag, in her book "On Photography", in the sections in which she drew on the ideas of the photographers of the 1930s and 40s to critique "photographic seeing", going on to suggest alternative impersonal modes of photography that were drawn from Chinese communism.

From Weston and Moholy-Nagy's ideas it follows that "photographic seeing" is very different from what an average person thinks about and sees when they look through the viewfinder of a camera. "Photographic seeing" is inevitably influenced by a serious photographer's training and by one's coming to understand the photographs of others. This inherent tension between personal style and influence then leads to what is usually termed "the anxiety of influence"; i.e.: where individuals anxiously strive to create a personal style that is unique to their own aesthetic judgement, breaking free of their early influences and of the peer pressure that had pushed them toward working in the currently fashionable style.

There are three general aspects of "photographic seeing":-

The first is one's conscious intention in making the image; this intention will feed directly into matters such as selection of subject matter, the framing of the subject in the viewfinder and the choice of 'landscape' or 'portrait' orientation, the use of zoom, etc. The desire of a serious photographer to create a unique personal style may lead them to choose subject matter that has previously been neglected or has been generally thought not to be worthy of being photographed.

The second aspect involves the quality of the light; the time of day one chooses to photograph, how long one waits for the light to change, or how one seeks to change the lighting through reflectors or flash. Light will also effect how one is able to present motion or stillness in a picture.

The third aspect is what might be called "the internal geometry" of the picture. This has to do with how shapes are placed in relation to one another in the frame, the placing of any element that might act as "the punctum", and all the subtle internal tensions of colour and tone and angles that combine to make a satisfying picture. This last aspect is perhaps the most difficult one to learn, and the most difficult aspect for an ordinary viewer to fully comprehend when looking at a picture.

There is a final consideration, addressed by John Szarkowski when he said "The camera has ideas of its own". By this he meant that photographic accidents, amateur handling of the camera, and 'unintended' pictures can, in rare circumstances, lead to certain pictures that point to a whole new style that can be explored by photographers.

A colloquial term that is very similar in meaning to "photographic seeing", and which is used among photographers not educated in photographic history and theory, is to simply say that a photographer "has an eye". By which they mean 'has a good photographic eye'.