Art + Science
Writing at the Intersection of Art and Science
The Decisive Moment and the Brain
As a photographer, you will sooner or later bump into the phrase the decisive moment. The decisive moment is a concept made popular by the street photographer, photojournalist, and Magnum co-founder Henri Cartier-Bresson. The decisive moment refers to capturing an event that is ephemeral and spontaneous, where the image represents the essence of the event itself.
Manipulated Photographs, Manipulated Memories
Photo manipulation is nearly as old, if not as old, as photography itself. It has been used in state propaganda, to unify nations, for aesthetic and creative expression, to generate fear, and the list goes on and on. As technology advances, altering photographic images has become quite easy. This begs the question: do the images we see convey accurate information?
Memory, Photography, and the Human Brain
There has been a good deal written about the similarities of the camera to the eye as well as the computer to human memory. What I would like to do is clarify the uniqueness of the human brain from camera technology and at the same time show the similarities between brain function, photography and cognition.