Research indicates that our memories of a place we've visited are more vivid if we do not take a picture while we are there. Just like a road not taken, a picture not taken can make a lot of difference in our lives. While this may seem counterintuitive, especially these days when we all have cameras in our purses or pockets, the fact remains: We remember more when we haven't taken a picture.
That is why when I climbed K2 I didn't take a camera. I didn't want anything interfering with my memory of the place. K2, as you probably know, is the world's second highest mountain and far more difficult and dangerous than Mount Everest. When someone who has summited K2 walks into a room of Everest climbers an awed silence ensues.
[Whereupon Editor stomps in: “You haven't climbed K2! You couldn't climb an anthill without help!
Author: You keep out of this!]
As far as I know, Reinhold Messner and I are the only people who have climbed K2 alone and without supplemental oxygen. He called K2 “the mountain of mountains. . . It is the most beautiful of all the high peaks. An artist has made this mountain.”
And I have the more vivid memory because I didn't bother taking a selfie just to prove I was there. Besides, I am a modest and unassuming man and, until now, never told anyone. (Celebrity isn't all it's cracked up to be. In an earlier life I was Errol Flynn and I can tell you it is a real bother not to be able to go outside without being recognized. That's me in the photograph with Olivia de Havilland in the movie The Santa Fe Trail. Olivia has just celebrated her 102nd birthday. As Errol Flynn, I've been dead for years.)
But enough about me. You want to know when and why it might be important not to take a picture.
Basically, we humans are no good at multitasking. If you are taking a picture, you are not fully present in that moment, which your memory requires. In one research experiment, people were significantly poorer at remembering objects they had just seen if they also had taken photographs of those objects. Not only did they remember fewer objects than the people who did not photograph, they recalled fewer details about each of the ones they did remember.
Photography not only diminishes our memory, it changes it. The camera you are using is designed to take pretty pictures. Computer programmers wrote algorithms into it to produce a certain kind of picture. A cell phone or inexpensive camera automatically produces a certain kind of picture; bright, intensified, and over-saturated photographs result. In the meantime the camera throws away data that a professional photographer needs. If it comes out of your camera as a jpeg file, it is not a truthful representation of what you saw and experienced.
Of course, no photograph ever is a precise visual equivalent of what we see. The human eye is quite different than a camera. As just one example, on a cloudless day the light in the shadows is almost all blue light reflected from the sky. That's what the camera sees. But our eyes and brain adjust for that so we see colors in shadows that cameras don't. We could go on and on about the differences, but the fundamental point remains: The picture you take with your cell phone camera will dim your memory and will not be the emotional equivalent of what you experienced.
A good example is the Grand Canyon. The Canyon is enormously difficult to photograph well. It is so immense and so silent and so old that it mostly defeats photography. It mostly defeated even Ansel Adams. Only a few photographers capture it and only in a few photographs. Unless you are a professional photographer and there to work, you might as well put the camera down and absorb the view. You can always buy a photograph that a professional made to hang on your wall at home or in your office. That photograph, made with attention to lens choice, depth-of-field, f-stops, tripod placement, film speed or sensor sensitivity, and so on will likely be more emotionally satisfying.
[Ed. Note: By the way, we at APG recently sold the Rio Grande to Saudi Arabia. We're going to use the money to buy the Grand Canyon and relocate it just west of Albuquerque. Geologists believe that the Colorado River once flowed into the Rio Grande but that an Arizona river “captured” it. That's why the Canyon currently lives in Arizona. We're going to restore it to its rightful place here in New Mexico. As soon as we get it moved, we'll be having an opening reception at the gallery. Stay tuned for details.]
We certainly are not suggesting that you not take pictures on your vacations. What we suggest is that you first get a snapshot of the people you are with. For the future of your family that may be the most important photograph of the day: It documents your visit and places you in that place at that time. Then, if you want, take a few photographs to post on social media or simply for your own use. But then put the device away. Now it is time to slow down. Take a few deep breaths. Look. Feel. As Thoreau wrote, “It's not important what you look at, it's what you see.” Be present both in body and spirit.
Don't rely on a photograph to remind you of the place. Memorize it instead.
Walk away and find enough of the necessary silence now. The sun is lower in the sky than it looks.
Steven Heighton
Gallery News
Stan Ford at Pecos
Gallery member Stan Ford's work is featured at the Pecos National Historical Park's museum this summer. Stan was the Park's first ever Artist-in-Residence during the summer of 2016 and some of the photos he made then are on display at the visitor's center. “A Glimpse of Pecos through the Lens of Stan Ford” is open now and will be up for most of the summer. Some of Stan's work at Pecos is also available for viewing and purchasing at the gallery.
The Arts in the Parks program began in the late 19th Century and was designed to allow America's public to see representations of their lands and to provide financial assistance to artists all across America. Many Hudson River artists came west to depict landscapes that most Americans had never seen. Today's artists in the program continually reinterpret those landscapes.
For more information about the park, contact Pecos NHP at (505) 757-7241 or visit their website atwww.nps.gov/peco. You will also find their listings on the New Mexico True website (www.newmexico.org). While the Park's backcountry is closed due to the severe drought, the visitor center and main walkways of the ruins remain open as of this writing. Stan's work is in the museum which is inside the Visitor's Center.
Friend of the Gallery Irene Fertik's New Book
Friend of the Gallery Irene Fertik's new book is out. The book is a compilation of many years of Irene's documentary photography of Ethiopian Jews living in Israel. The publisher of the book has this to say about it: “The title of this book, From Tesfa to Tikva, means from hope to hope – the first in Amharic, the other in Hebrew.The story of the Ethiopian Jews spans millennia. Holding fast to a dream of returning to Jerusalem, this ancient biblical community began immigrating to Israel in the late 1970’s. However, the move from isolated agrarian mountain villages in Ethiopia to a modern technological culture in Israel has meant an incredible sacrifice for the older immigrants, and enormous challenges and adjustments for their children. Both in photos and text, Fertik chronicles the story of 25 years of change and transition.”
For more information, here is the link to Irene's marvelous and beautiful book.
Workshops and Photo Excursions
Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Photo Excursion
Join Gallery member Kent Winchester and Peter Boehringer for our annual house boat photographic adventure to Lake Powell and Glen Canyon. We use a house boat and a motor boat to take you to some of the most photogenic sites on and close to the Lake. We'll go in Late October when the weather is usually wonderful and all the crowds have left. Just as an example, last year we were the only people at Rainbow Bridge, probably the top tourist destination on the Lake.
For information about this great photographic excursion led by your Newsletter writer and editor plus someone who actually knows what he is doing: former APG member Peter Boehringer, go to either of their websites. Kent Winchester's is here and Peter's is here.
Psst. Here's the block where we suggest that the best way to support the arts is to buy some.
But before all else, a work of art is the creation of love. Love for the subject first and for the medium second. Love is the fundamental necessity underlying the need to create, underlying the emotion that gives it form, and from which grows the unfinished product that is presented to the world. Love is the general criterion by which the rare photograph is judged. It must contain it to be not less than the best of which the photographer is capable.
-Eliot Porter
The Story behind the Song
“ Normally this space discusses the story behind a photograph but this month we talk about a song. Recently I decided the gallery should have a theme song. So far Simon and Garfunkel's “Kodachrome” is the only nominee. [Please feel free to nominate another and we'll let everyone vote.]
But its hard to believe another song would be more fitting. Kodachrome film is an iconic product that defined an age of color photography. Kodak first introduced it in 1935 and it remained in production until 2009. Until the 1980s the overwhelming majority of color prints were taken on Kodachrome. For much of its life it had the best and most vivid colors of any print film on the market.
Plus, it is the only film ever to have a state park named after it.
Paul Simon wrote a song about those colors. The chorus begins:
Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah
The first version of the song included the line, “Everything looks worse in black and white.” But as he matured and his view of the world expanded he realized a universal truth about photography and changed the line to “Everything looks better in black and white.”
Which is the truth. The world is not all a sunny day. In fact, many days of our lives are anything but sunny. That is why everything really does look better in black and white. Black and white photographs acknowledge the complicated world in which we live, where shades of gray are the predominant metaphors that explain our existence on the planet.
We may see in color, but we feel in black and white.
Kodachrome
Hang on to the Dream
We leave you this Fourth of July week in the year 2018 — and of the independence of the United States of America the two hundredth and forty-second — with another song.
Hang on to the Dream
At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, as he left Independence Hall
Benjamin Franklin was asked by a bystander, “Well Doctor what have we got?”
Franklin replied, “A republic . . . if you can keep it.”
Gallery Views and News
Research indicates that our memories of a place we've visited are more vivid if we do not take a picture while we are there. Just like a road not taken, a picture not taken can make a lot of difference in our lives. While this may seem counterintuitive, especially these days when we all have cameras in our purses or pockets, the fact remains: We remember more when we haven't taken a picture.
And I have the more vivid memory because I didn't bother taking a selfie just to prove I was there. Besides, I am a modest and unassuming man and, until now, never told anyone. (Celebrity isn't all it's cracked up to be. In an earlier life I was Errol Flynn and I can tell you it is a real bother not to be able to go outside without being recognized. That's me in the photograph with Olivia de Havilland in the movie The Santa Fe Trail. Olivia has just celebrated her 102nd birthday. As Errol Flynn, I've been dead for years.)
A good example is the Grand Canyon. The Canyon is enormously difficult to photograph well. It is so immense and so silent and so old that it mostly defeats photography. It mostly defeated even Ansel Adams. Only a few photographers capture it and only in a few photographs. Unless you are a professional photographer and there to work, you might as well put the camera down and absorb the view. You can always buy a photograph that a professional made to hang on your wall at home or in your office. That photograph, made with attention to lens choice, depth-of-field, f-stops, tripod placement, film speed or sensor sensitivity, and so on will likely be more emotionally satisfying.
Gallery member Stan Ford's work is featured at the Pecos National Historical Park's museum this summer. Stan was the Park's first ever Artist-in-Residence during the summer of 2016 and some of the photos he made then are on display at the visitor's center. “A Glimpse of Pecos through the Lens of Stan Ford” is open now and will be up for most of the summer. Some of Stan's work at Pecos is also available for viewing and purchasing at the gallery.
Friend of the Gallery Irene Fertik's new book is out. The book is a compilation of many years of Irene's documentary photography of Ethiopian Jews living in Israel. The publisher of the book has this to say about it: “The title of this book, From Tesfa to Tikva, means from hope to hope – the first in Amharic, the other in Hebrew.The story of the Ethiopian Jews spans millennia. Holding fast to a dream of returning to Jerusalem, this ancient biblical community began immigrating to Israel in the late 1970’s. However, the move from isolated agrarian mountain villages in Ethiopia to a modern technological culture in Israel has meant an incredible sacrifice for the older immigrants, and enormous challenges and adjustments for their children. Both in photos and text, Fertik chronicles the story of 25 years of change and transition.”
Normally this space discusses the story behind a photograph but this month we talk about a song. Recently I decided the gallery should have a theme song. So far Simon and Garfunkel's “Kodachrome” is the only nominee. [Please feel free to nominate another and we'll let everyone vote.]
