Round Like a circle in a spiral…
This morning I awoke thinking about lenses and the thought: Why aren't photographs circular? I mean the lenses produce circular representations of the light. It must be for practical reasons; glass plates, negatives, storage … convenience … who has or had the time to cut out circles? And storing circles … knowing which way was up. I got to thinking about how these early practical considerations have shaped the way we look at the world. How we frame and crop it to suit. Our cameras have shaped and at times constrained our view for so long that I feel sometimes we forget that the world is not cropped into 4×6 or square or 5×7 ratios … that the light coming into our lenses is circular and that we chop it up. Our eyes don't see in terms of square cut windows. I think it strange that with the advent of new technologies that potentially free us from the practical constraints of the past (such as digital imaging, capture and projection) we still cling to them … we call them imaging standards. I imagine that a camera that the captured the light in a circular fashion would be labelled 'novelty' or of 'limited practical use' simply because it did something new (there's an irony in there somewhere).
like a wheel within a wheel …
From a biological perspective, our eyes see circles. We are fortunate to have them hooked up to a superlative imaging system in our brains that creates the impression that we see much more than the circles of light refracted upside-down onto the back of our eyes. Our brains take this input and effectively stitch our visual reality together for us. Our visual experience appears so seamless because the transition between scenes is edited out. You can test this for yourself very easily by a simple experiment. Standing in front of a mirror, look at your left eye. Now look at your right eye. Did you feel your eyes move? Quite likely. Did you see them move? No, you didn't. That movement is a transitional scene that your mind edits out … I don't know why it does but it does. Magicians and sleight of hand experts exploit this phenomenon.
Now I don't spend hours in front of a mirror trying to see my eyes moving back and forth and I only present it here to illustrate how what we see is not always what we see.
The photograph: you're looking down the barrel of a 105mm field gun at a defence recruiting display at the Canberra Show. I loved the way the rifling spiraled away into the bokeh. The colour is a result of the crowd walking past the other end of the gun. Reference – sprial – blur – colour … what more could you want? Sometimes the world blurs into shape and colour … abstract forms and amorphous shapes (thankfully not when I'm driving 😉 ). It retains for a time the rigidity of frame, of reference but becomes something else entirely … something without frame or reference.
Did you try the experiment? Go find a mirror and try it now. Did you see your eyes move?
You are amazing, Geoff. Did I ever tell you I LOVE LOVE LOVE the way you think!!! I learn so much from you every time I come to your page here! Thank you.
No I don’t think you ever did … and you’re very welcome 🙂
The shoot is absolutely fantastic. Although I thought of something more peaceful. But even an unused field gun might be an object of beauty and peaceful meditation.
Our perceptions are such imperfect things. Have you ever blind folded a person and held an onion beneath their nose and asked them to bite into an apple. Almost without exception people will tell you that they have taken a bite of onion.
That is a truly amazing image. Thank you.
VERY INTERESTING PERSPECTIVE!!! IT IS TRUE THAT SOMETIMES WE DO NOT SEE WHAT WE THINK WE DO AND OTHER TIMES WE SEE THINGS WHICH COULDN’T BE TRUE. FOR EXAMPLE ONE TIME I WAS LOOKING UP AT THE SKY AND LIKE IN CARTOONS, SUDDENLY THE MOON ROSE – BOINK – TO A HIGHER POSITION RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY EYES. I WAS WITH A FRIEND AT THE TIME BUT SHE DID NOT SEE THE QUICK TRANSITION NOR DID SHE BELIEVE THAT IT COULD HAVE HAPPENED. DOES THAT MEAN THAT I DID NOT SEE IT TOO?? NO, I SAW IT AND TO THIS DAY I WONDER AT THE MARVEL AND HOW IT COULD HAVE BEEN. YOUR ARTICLE REMINDED ME OF THAT TIME AND OTHER TIMES WHEN THINGS JUST DO NOT SEEM TO BE SO BUT ARE. THANK YOU. KEEP UP THE FINE INQUIRY INTO POSSIBILITIES OF THE THIRD KIND – BY NOW OF A HIGHER KING, FOR SURE.!!!
As usual I’m mesmerized by your imagination and depth of thinking. Just posted some additional images of that steel sculpture–the rust intriguing me.
While not as methodical and sciencey, I am fascinated with perception as well. Another interesting post and wonderful image.
So much to think about and consider here. I can’t say I’d ever asked why it is we don’t photograph in the round….but that you’ve got me wondering. And – I just love the image. So creative!
What an absolutely fascinating concept and who knew that looking down the barrel of a gun could be as psychedelic as this brilliant shot!
Woa, I totally missed that on Monday when you published it. I was more or less sleepwalking all day, deadly tired from looking too long at the stars all weekend and still lacking sleep I’m afraid.
Reading your words and looking at the pictures makes me think about Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man and squaring the circle. Cutting out circles rather than squared or rectangled shape might be a little bit more difficult at times though it didn’t stop mankind from inventing the wheel. Ok, now I’m wondering whether the fact “that the light coming into our lenses is circular” – as you wrote – could have been the sparkle behind the idea of the wheel. Time to get some sleep, I guess, so as a last comment I would like to add that your pictures could also be the imagination of a wormhole, somewhere in space, connecting us with an unknown world.
As a big fan ready to snap us in its propellers, excellent!
A quite feeling of vertigo in this picture. Nicely done!
Have a nice day.
A very interesting post. I actually think the first box-cameras made circular pictures, but today we are so trained to see pictures as rectangles that viewing a circular one would be really odd – despite how our eyes work. As for the mirror experience, one reason you can’t see the eye moving, is because at the moment of moving your eye, you also lose eye contact with yourself. Only the peripheral vision will be seeing yourself, but not good enough to catch the eyes moving. As to the picture, knowing what it is, makes it so much more interesting. Your curiosity is great, Geoffrey.
this is very cool, i like your interpretation here
Circled images…hmmm? Isn’t that called a ‘vignette’? And I think you’ll find that the really early daguerrotypes were circular, in the sense they were vignettes, which have now come back full-circle in photography (some of mine, for instance). Love the photo, superbly abstract, geoff.
Fantastic shot, Geoff! And my favorite song, too. 🙂
Thanks EE 🙂
I’m really loving the theme/design of your blog. Do you ever run into any web browser compatibility issues? A couple of my blog audience have complained about my site not operating correctly in Explorer but looks great in Opera. Do you have any solutions to help fix this problem?
Hi, and welcome to Pictures with Words. Thanks for compliment. To tell the truth I don’t pay a great deal of attention to it. My WordPress is a self-hosted one using a theme that conforms properly to modern Web publishing standards. I just have to trust that it presents well in other environments.
My website however uses a custom theme handled by CSS. It did require some research to ensure it delivered. It needs a little tweaking and update too
Hope this helps in some way 🙂