I'm a purist by nature, and reviving photo secessionism has my vote! But rather than getting entangled in a confused discourse in to it's virtues and realism, I'd like to ask anyone if he/she practices left-eye pre-visualisation/photography. I have it in mind to add this strange subject to my student's curriculum and would be grateful to hear of other people's practices. If this is a new subject to you, then, in a nutshell... The right eye is connected to the left side of the brain and the left eye to the right side of the brain. The left side of the brain is mathematical and analytical, the right side of the brain is artistic. If you view a subject with one eye covered then you will percieve that scene with bias depending on which eye you are using. By realising the consequences you can use this technique to your creative advantage. I would like to devise some kind of simple instruction using this method, can anyone think of some good, clear examples to interest neophytes? I have a few ideas of course, but I want to hear some fresh scenarios.

ps If you think I use strange language, it's because I'm english. I sometimes have difficulty following you yankee-doodles too!!

-Alex +

-- Alexander Rawlins (ARawlins33@aol.com), April 14, 1998

Answers

I lived the first 20 years of my life using just my left eye. Through a couple of operations I now have use of both eyes. I have always thought that it has had some effect on the way I see the world and photography has always come naturally to me. I have no sceince behind this but have always felt it to be of help in my photography.

-- Jeff White (zonie@computer-concepts.com), April 14, 1998.

reply to left eye photography

Alexander, Unfortunately, as a look at any anatomy book will confirm, the optic nerves from both eyes meet at a point called the optic chiasma (among other names) and fibers from each eye go to both sides of the brain along the optic tracts. For many people, the two eyes do not function exactly the same. The differences are usually minor, and have no measurable effect. Don't confuse the left brain-right brain discussion confuse you. The output from the eyes is balanced. I suggest that when people do the left eye viewing, they may be concentrating more, expecting some difference, and being more attentive to the scene. But hey, whatever the reason, if it works for you, great. Richard Newman

-- Richard Newman (rnewman@snip.net), April 14, 1998.

Well, as a left-handed, left-eyed Brit, I support the theory that sinisterity is more artistic, and just all-round better. Look at Leonado Da Vinci, for example.

More seriously, I suspect that experiments could be devised, along the lines of copying a drawing with one eye covered, and judging whether the result is "artistic" or "scientific". But trying to filter out the effects of eye defects would be hard, and don't forget to allow for the fact that although some people are "right-eyed", some of us are not. Why is that, by the way? Anyone know?

-- Alan Gibson (gibson.al@mail.dec.com), April 14, 1998.

I agree with Richard Newman that personal bias would greatly affect the analysis of any experiment when there is an expected outcome by the researcher, especially with such subjective data. This is a major problem with any research and a great deal of effort is made to eliminate this variable. A simple, but incomplete, way to reduce bias is to have people who are unfamiliar with the concepts, or students, score the results; in scientific lingo they are 'blind'. To do this assign, at random, a number or letter to the individual results and record them for later use. This should be the only identifier that the reviewer should see and make sure that you, or your students are not in the room to influence the outcome. You will need to use some simple statistics to see if there is a significant difference between the two eyes. I'm not familiar with the right eye-left eye topic but it's a great idea to try and you just never know where it may lead.

-- Andy Laycock (agl@intergate.bc.ca), April 15, 1998.

I took several neurophysiology classes while in grad school in Experimental Psychology, so I can verify a previous reply that said both eyes are connected to both sides of the brain.

For those that are interested, here's a quick version of how it all works. (I'm doing this from memory -- appoligies to any of my previous professors that may be reading this.)

Each eye is split into two main sections, the left and right halves. So, you basically have 4 channels comming from the eyes, two from each eye. As you all probably know from photography, the image projected on the retina is upside down and reversed, like the image a lens projects onto film in a camera. Therefore, the left half of each eye "sees" the right visual field, and the right half of each eye "sees" the left half of the visual field.

In the optic chiasm (which is behind the eyes and below the brain), the four channels meet. At this point, the left half of each eye (which see the right visual field) join together, and the right half of each eye (which see left visual field) join together.

After the visual fields are joined, the neural impulses from each field pass through separate preprocessing centers (the lateral geniculate nucleus or LGN) before being sent to the visual cortex. The visual center of the brain is in the very back, just behind that small bump on the back of your head. At this point, signals from the right visual field are processed by the left side of the brain, and signals from the left visual field are processed by the left side of the brain. There are several separate stages within the visual coretx, and as the neural impulses progress through these stages, the signals are furhter processed. Researchers are still trying to understand the later phases of visual processing and how we ultimatelly see and comprehend something.

So, yes, the two halves of the brain each process portions of the visual information comming from the eyes. But, it is more complicated than simply left to right and right to left. Also, most neurophysiologists beleive that the processing done in the visual cortex is "preconsious." That is, the signals are processed in several areas of the brain before we "see" or become "aware" of the signals.

In general, I don't put much stock in the left/right brain stuff. There are specialized areas of the brain in both halves that each play an important role in human perception, understanding, emotion, and behavior. It will a long time before we have it all figured out. The brain is the REAL final frontier.

-- Joel Collins (jwc3@mindspring.com), April 16, 1998.

I am right handed in all tasks except photography, archery, shooting a gun and shooting pool. For these tasks I am left handed because I am left eyed. This was not a concious decision, but evolved naturally. So if I was to experiment, I would shoot my camera with my right eye. I'll have to try it. I am also going to start putting a golf ball left handed since I can't do it right right handed!

-- Eilert Anders (eilert@dav.com), June 10, 1998.

You might use Adams approach of using a sepia filter to pre-visualize the scene. He describes this in one of his books, either the Camera, The Negative or The Print.

-- Gene Crumpler (crumpler.gene@epa.gov), June 12, 1998.