Slow Photography #33: 5 Ideas for Clear Thinking Fast & Slow

Spring sunrise off the New Jersey coast.

1. THINK FIRST  

Check out that Mode dial on your camera. There may be a letter B on it. B means Bulb. It keeps your shutter open for as long as you hold down the shutter release, giving more time to expose the image. Allowing more time is the point. When we choose B on our mode dials, we can also mentally change our operating mode to Brain.

B for a longer, more leisurely exposure, and B for Brain.  

Our brain has two main systems that fire up our visual areas to make better pictures. The one we often think of is left and right brain, but that division is an outdated, simplistic idea about our amazing visual processing system inside our Brain.

Spring in a water fountain.









2. PHOTOGRAPH IN HEART MODE

  Thinking, Fast and Slow is a 2011 book by Nobel Memorial Prize winner in Economics Daniel Kahneman. In his book, Kahneman shows us two types of thinking we can use for our photographs.

     System 1 is fast, instinctive and emotional. System 2 is SLOW but SURE, a slower, deliberative, and more logical process. If you've had debates with friends about whether you "think" when you shoot, or just "shoot", this may sound familiar. It turns out we can use both, and switch between them.

    In System 1, our brain pattern tends to be automatic, frequent, emotional, habitual, subconscious and fast acting. 

   For simplicity, we can call System 1 heart mode. System 2 is Thought mode.

   So, next time you are out shooting, think fast and make a photograph without analyzing. Street photographers often practice this, and will be familiar with System 1 and its emotional, subconscious patterns of thought.

July 4th parade in Bristol, Rhode Island. 

3. PHOTOGRAPH IN MIND MODE

    As visual story tellers, we work with what we can see. We often deal in what the author Daniel Kahneman calls Known Knowns. These are our habits we fall back on as we take pictures of what we can observe; we can also make pictures of what we perceive.

 We can train out minds to photograph using System 2: Slowly perceived, effortful, logical, calculating, conscious thinking.

    The challenge for creative photographers is to pay close attention to what we can't see right away, but will see with effort and conscious thought. This is a "what if" type of thinking. It expands our mind metaphors and challenges us to imagine what could be, beyond what is. It helps to pause and think, avoiding burst capture or hyperfast shooting.

Ghostly warnings.

 

4. SWITCHING BRAIN MODES

 Using heart mode ( System 1) and mind mode (System 2), we can improve our photography. The first step is to observe our thoughts, as we press the shutter, to check if we are using System 1, heart mode. Or, are we tending to use System 2, our calculating, logical mind mode?

   To switch modes, take a breath. Relaxed breathing helps us see in a fresh way. To prove this, try running a mile and then making good images when you are out of breath. Slowing and deepening our breathing is a valuable exercise for photographers. As we slow down out in and out breaths, we can switch from System 1 to System 2 or vice versa. 

 

Cape Cod taxi driver in Provincetown.

5. ALLOW TIME for BRAIN TO CATCH UP TO HEART

    It helps to give our brains more time. Not just to slow down, but for creative thinking. Often, our initial emotional responses are fast and hard wired, yet we need time to think clearly to get the facts, and weigh our actions. 

   One company does this quite well, for instance. Google encourages its employees to tackle problems which passionately interest them. In doing so, Google offers staff about 20 percent of their total work time to pursue their personal hunches and think deliberately and deeply on problem areas about which which they are passionate. 

   So what? Google's work environment promotes better work ethics. It also reduces depression and stress from mental clutter.

   Along these lines, Christopher Richards, master of Slowosophy, offers this advice:

"Thinking and considering before acting takes a level of impulse control that’s missing when we become overly stressed. Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If, is about keeping your head when all those about you are losing theirs. Maintaining a sense of calm when others are stressed and panicking is not easy. Slow is not about being lazy."

       It also takes time for all of us, to think clearly. Why? Because our emotions influence our rational thought more than our thoughts shape our emotions. Out of emotional attachment to our images, we tend to under-edit them, and include images that are not really our best effort. No image is better than a bad one.

Drowned clown.

    For these photographs, I've chosen the theme red and yellow. While I used System 1 thinking to capture this color combination, I also pondered the connotation of these two colors, red and yellow. Why? To arrive at the title: Drowned Clown. For instance, the colors red and yellow may have associations with sunshine, memory, energy, happiness, freedom, celebration, prosperity, change, stop, or caution.

Thanks for your visit.

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This article is dedicated to Dee Beneda with thanks for inspiration, dedication, friendship, and a great newsletter.

Text and images in this blog Copyright 2014, Jim Austin Jimages. 

Link to Thinking Fast and Slow.