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I'm not a psychologist, psychiatrist,
nor am I a brain surgeon (obviously) and I don't play one on
the Internet. Heck, I didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn
Express last night. But when it comes to photography and the
creative process, I keenly embrace using the principles of a
concept called brain function lateralization. In a
nutshell, brain function lateralization refers to how the
left and right hemispheres of our brains process information
in vastly different ways. The right half of the brain is
where we feel emotion, use our imagination, and do all of
our dreaming, while the left half is where we use language,
reason, and apply logic. This idea is certainly nothing new
to most of you, but learning how to utilize this knowledge
can help you, as a photographer, better understand the
creative process and make images that better express your
experiences in the field.
A Brain Divided
It's important to understand that our
conscious mind can only process information from one side of
the brain at a time. We are able to switch back and forth
fairly effortlessly, but it's not the most productive way
for the brain to operate. So in the end, authority is
delegated to one half of the brain or the other in deciding
what information enters our consciousness and what doesn't.
This includes visual information that is transmitted from
our eyes via the optic nerve. Alas, the struggle is almost
always won by our dominant left brain, while the right plays
a much more passive role.
Our right brain is able to smuggle information into our
awareness only when the left brain is asleep at the wheel or
lulled into boredom. During these times, random emotional
and visual vignettes and freely associated images wildly
dance and flicker through our consciousness before the
rational left brain once again regains control and restores
order. For the photographer, it's in the right half of the
brain where the creative spark is kindled, making a
connection to the world we see in intuitive, emotional
terms. The left half is concerned with more prosaic matters
such as exposure, perspective, and composition (I am
convinced that composition is more of a cognitive process
than an intuitive one although admittedly, I often simply
defer to what feels right).
Feel Inspired
I believe that if your goal is to have
others inspired and moved by the images you make, you must
be inspired and moved by what you see in the field. If you
want to evoke a strong emotional response from others with
your photography, you must have a strong emotional
connection to what you are photographing. How can you expect
others to be moved by your images if you were ambivalent
about the scene yourself? How can you possibly expect
someone to feel power, awe, tranquility, melancholy, or
heartache in your images if you, an actual witness to the
scene, felt nothing? Intuition, feelings, and emotions are
all hallmarks of right brain processing. We must bypass the
left brain to allow the right side to extract emotional
meaning from the scene or subject we are photographing.
Making that emotional connection is the first step to
creating those meaningful images we seek.
Let the Photograph Find You
I try to use the following
photographic approach when I'm in the field prospecting for
images. In discussions I've had with other successful
photographers about their approach to image creation, I have
found similar processes with some variations. When I am in
the field, I often forget there is a camera with me. I am
not thinking about composition, light, or any pressure to
make a single image on the trip. I simply savor the
experience and try to totally immerse myself in the present
time and place with heightened senses and awareness. I don't
look for anything in particular, nor do I expect to find
anything. Instead, I am fostering a state of mind where I am
completely receptive to something finding me.
The late fine-art photographer, Ruth Bernhard, once
explained how she approached her craft.
"I never look for a photograph," she explained. "The
photograph finds me and says, 'I'm here!' and I say, 'Yes I
see you. I hear you!'"
The key is being completely receptive to your environment
and passive with your thoughts. I find this to be the most
effective way in allowing the right brain to temporarily
gain the upper hand. The worst thing you can do is rush into
the field with preconceived ideas or images in your head
that you want to create. Trying to force things only
reasserts the left brain's dominance and ultimately leads to
photographic clichés, recycled concepts, and emotionally
barren results. When something in the field does speak to
you and you are drawn to a particular scene, you don't want
to immediately reach for your camera and start shooting.
Too many times, I have aborted the
process at this point and started to take the photograph. As
I fired away, my hands would literally shake with excitement
as I imagined how amazing the images would look later on the
computer screen, as a large print, or even a magazine cover.
How could it not? I am feeling it! Later, however, the only
thing shaking is my head as I repeatedly ask myself, "What
the heck was I thinking?" Far removed from the emotional
high experienced in the field, the images failed to trigger
the same response. This is exactly how other people might
see these images as well. Whether they actually tell you or
not, their sentiment will probably be, "I just don’t get
it." The right brain provided the creative, emotional spark,
but something was obviously lost in the translation.
Achieving Brain Cross-Over
Instead of instinctively grabbing the
camera, ask yourself some fundamental questions. Why do I
want to photograph this? What is drawing me to this scene?
What emotion is this scene eliciting from me and what
ultimately do I want to communicate here? What elements
within the scene are contributing to this emotional
sensation I am feeling? If you can verbalize some of these
answers, they will be easier to act on. Language is the
domain of the left brain and verbalization provides the
catalyst to left-brain image execution. Remember, we cannot
process information from both sides of our brain
simultaneously, so this is the start of the transition.
What emotional sensation did we verbalize? Tranquility?
Strength? What elements, specifically, were contributing to
this emotional response? The motion of the water? The
stately tree branches?
Now, what tools do we possess that emphasizes and
accentuates these elements? Those tools can be found deep
within your camera bag or deep in the well of your
accumulated photographic knowledge and experience. Where is
the focal point of the image? Do these elements lend
themselves to a wide-angle composition that merges the focal
point gracefully with the surrounding environment, or does a
more simplified presentation communicate this better? Well,
you get the point. We are creating a concept, which is all
left-brain processing.
If we remain in right-brain mode
without crossing over to left-brain image execution, we are
likely to create images with strong emotional content, but
with little or no meaning to anyone but ourselves. Your
emotional response to the scene must be conceptualized in
order for others, who were never there at the scene, to "get
it." I know. I've done it far too many times myself. If we
stay only in left-brain mode and never establish any
emotional connection to the scene, the results will likely
be technically adept, well-crafted images that are
essentially emotionally sterile. Unfortunately, I've been
there too.
I've always wanted to make other people feel, through my
photography, the same emotional highs and lows that I
experience in the outdoors. Sometimes an image succeeds
using this model and sometimes it doesn't. Not every image
will resonate the same way with every human being. But ever
since I began to understand how my two brain hemispheres
function and then learned to coordinate the two, I've
experienced more creative energy in the field while more
images have hit their mark. If it can help my photography,
certainly it can help yours as well. After all, it doesn't
take a brain surgeon to make this work, only a brain.
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