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Author Topic: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment  (Read 259771 times)

amolitor

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #440 on: January 28, 2015, 07:10:25 am »

A Google search for 'unobservable' turns up the relevant Wikipedia page as the first hit, for me.
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LKaven

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #441 on: January 28, 2015, 09:55:46 am »

We can know something exists without understanding every aspect and detail of its existence. Otherwise it would be impossible to know anything without knowing everything.

You are actually onto something important in saying this.  But it doesn't pertain directly to observability.  It pertains to 'reference'.  And in modern philosophy of science (post-1970), reference does some of the work that your intuitions suggest needs to be done.  Google terms here would be "naming and necessity", "the causal theory of reference", all taken together under "scientific realism".

There is a classical problem in counting the use of instruments as observations, especially where those instruments presuppose the existence of the very thing under question.

A Google search for 'unobservable' turns up the relevant Wikipedia page as the first hit, for me.

:-)

LKaven

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #442 on: January 28, 2015, 11:49:14 am »

Is Cartier-Bresson's solo a single exposure or the whole sequence?

Music is serialized in time and involves diachronic perception (e.g., how beat 1 in measure 4 relates to beat 1 in measure 1).  Unless the photographer was composing a serialized work, I'd say the extemporaneous composition is in the individual image, certainly so in HCB's case.

Jonathan Wienke

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #443 on: January 28, 2015, 11:58:56 am »

According to Google:
ob·serv·a·ble
əbˈzərvəb(ə)l/
adjective
adjective: observable

    able to be noticed or perceived; discernible.
    "observable differences"
    synonyms:   noticeable, visible, perceptible, perceivable, detectable, conspicuous, distinguishable, discernible, recognizable, evident, apparent, manifest, obvious, patent, palpable, overt, clear, distinct, plain, unmistakable


According to Wikipedia:
Observable

In physics, particularly in quantum physics, a system observable is a measurable operator, or gauge, where the property of the system state can be determined by some sequence of physical operations. For example, these operations might involve submitting the system to various electromagnetic fields and eventually reading a value off some gauge. In systems governed by classical mechanics, any experimentally observable value can be shown to be given by a real-valued function on the set of all possible system states.



Even by the Wikipedia definition, the existence of gravity is "observable". Try holding your arm out horizontally for a few minutes, and you will perceive all sorts of sensations caused by gravity interacting with your arm. How are the neural impulses caused by gravity interacting with sensory cells in your arm any different than the neural impulses generated by photons interacting with the sensory cells in your retina?

Stated differently, why would you consider sensory data captured by the retina to be an "observation", but not sensory data captured by other sensory organs? We don't "observe" anything directly; every sensory notion we have about the world around us is the product of some physical phenomenon stimulating sensory cells in our bodies, which stimulates neural activity, which is then interpreted by our brains. On what basis do you argue that only one human sensory apparatus can "observe" the world around us? On what grounds do you make that distinction?
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stamper

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #444 on: January 28, 2015, 12:21:40 pm »

Moderator please put them out of their misery.

amolitor

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #445 on: January 28, 2015, 01:08:32 pm »

You looked up unobservable and found the definition unsatisfactory, didn't you?
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #446 on: January 28, 2015, 01:08:53 pm »

I think the important issue here is this: What did Cartier-Bresson have to say about photons vs. gravitons?   ???
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amolitor

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #447 on: January 28, 2015, 01:12:13 pm »

Good lord. Are you guys seriously arguing about the definitions of words which in  first place have essentially nothing to do with the questions at hand and which in the second place have perfectly good definitions which you can just look up?


Is there anyone here who isn't here just to fight, fight about anything, at this point?
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RSL

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #448 on: January 28, 2015, 02:35:24 pm »

Moderator please put them out of their misery.

+1. Please!
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LKaven

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #449 on: January 28, 2015, 03:00:50 pm »

Good lord. Are you guys seriously arguing about the definitions of words which in  first place have essentially nothing to do with the questions at hand and which in the second place have perfectly good definitions which you can just look up?

Is there anyone here who isn't here just to fight, fight about anything, at this point?

Obviously, I came here to talk about HCB and photography, which involves philosophical issues.  It is necessary sometimes to clarify a point using examples that are not directly about photography. 

However, this digression has not been a productive one.  Jonathan needs to take his side questions to PM where I'll be glad to answer them, and he needs to apologize for his earlier cruelty.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2015, 03:19:15 pm by LKaven »
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #450 on: January 28, 2015, 03:51:29 pm »

Hi,

I would say that HCB's photography is neither about physics or philosophy. I don't like to see this confrontation between two guys who used to make good contributions to these forums.

Although I have some training in science I cannot follow all this discussion. But, I am pretty sure that Luke is on solid ground on this, he used to be. Modern science is not always easy to grasp. It used also be the way that in some areas we have pretty solid knowledge and in some areas a more general understanding. A colleague used to have a sign on his door: "Simple is beautiful. When simplicity is not at hand, beauty will do."

Best regards
Erik


Obviously, I came here to talk about HCB and photography, which involves philosophical issues.  It is necessary sometimes to clarify a point using examples that are not directly about photography. 

However, this digression has not been a productive one.  Jonathan needs to take his side questions to PM where I'll be glad to answer them, and he needs to apologize for his earlier cruelty.
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LKaven

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #451 on: January 28, 2015, 05:06:34 pm »

I would say that HCB's photography is neither about physics or philosophy. [...]

But certainly HCB's /philosophy/ is partly about philosophy.  His philosophy includes things such as the treatise on "decisive moment", and the related reasons why he did not crop except in rare circumstances.  That's what the topic of this thread is.  These things are all of course implicated in the semantics and aesthetics of his work, which is also philosophy.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2015, 05:24:41 pm by LKaven »
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Isaac

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #452 on: January 28, 2015, 05:39:45 pm »

Quote
"With me," he says, "photography is a way of drawing. It is not philosophy, or literature, or music : it is a strictly visual medium, grasping at the evidence of reality. … A photograph is made on the spot and at once."


"I never crop a photograph. If it needs to be cropped I know it's bad and that nothing could possibly improve it. The only improvement would have been to have taken another picture, at the right place and at the right time."

Henri Cartier-Bresson on the art of photography
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LKaven

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #453 on: January 28, 2015, 05:54:16 pm »

Quote
"With me," he says, "photography is a way of drawing. It is not philosophy, or literature, or music : it is a strictly visual medium, grasping at the evidence of reality. … A photograph is made on the spot and at once."


"I never crop a photograph. If it needs to be cropped I know it's bad and that nothing could possibly improve it. The only improvement would have been to have taken another picture, at the right place and at the right time."

Yep.  That's his philosophy.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2015, 01:26:07 am by LKaven »
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amolitor

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #454 on: January 28, 2015, 06:27:40 pm »

Rocketry is not mathematics. And yet, mathematics is what we must use to understand it.
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LKaven

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #455 on: January 28, 2015, 09:02:20 pm »

It's the way Cartier-Bresson thought about and dealt with photography -- philosophy informal.

Rather than Philosophy the academic study of knowledge, reality and existence.

Not sure what you mean, since there's a continuity between these things.  He absorbed a number of philosophical ideas that were going around at the time, and after some reflection, arrived at something that was more or less coherent, wrote about it, and of course, practiced it. 

RSL

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #456 on: January 29, 2015, 06:40:55 am »

Moderator please put them out of their misery.

Actually, Stamper, no. Consider: this is keeping Isaac busy and away from other threads.
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stamper

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #457 on: January 29, 2015, 07:03:12 am »

Russ, I think you have just encouraged him?

amolitor

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #458 on: January 29, 2015, 09:04:39 am »

FOUR MORE YEARS!
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #459 on: January 29, 2015, 09:36:39 am »

 
Actually, Stamper, no. Consider: this is keeping Isaac busy and away from other threads.
;D    ;D    ;D
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-Eric Myrvaagnes (visit my website: http://myrvaagnes.com)
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