Which eye do you use when you take pictures with an SLR? I've always used my left eye (which is now causing a problem as I get nose grease on the display screen of our digital SLR - obviously made for people who use their right eye). When I pointed this out to Bill he thought I was crazy and that all people used their right eyes when looking through the view-finder.
I am wondering if using different eyes accounts for the differences in the photos we take as well. So we sat down and picked out some photos that we thought were typical of our style.
Here are some of Bill's:
And here are some of mine:
The differences are even more apparent when we take pictures of the same subject, such as DC's panda statues that were all over town:
Bill:
Me:
I did some searching around and found info from the American Psychological Association that gave this background in an article:
...prior research, which has indicated that the left hemisphere is adept at processing visual "parts," while the right hemisphere is more adept at analyzing visual "wholes."
Bill likes wholes:
And I go for parts:
Now this seems contradictory as we know the left side of your body is controlled by your right brain, and this is the opposite of our apparent styles (unless in art you are looking for something to explain what your brain is lacking?). But this might be an oversimplification - this site (Figure 3) has some info and so does photo.net.
Our vision can be broken into four parts - left and right sides of left eye and left and right sides of right eye. What you see from the left side of each eye goes to your right brain and the right sides of each eye go to your left brain. So maybe I favor the right side of my left eye?
I really want there to be something cool in all this, so I'm taking a poll...
Which eye do you use when taking photos and how would you describe your photographic style? (And show us some pictures to prove it)
Another thing that might be interesting to note is that JoAnna's lens of choice is a telephoto, I prefer a wide angle. These lens choices further re-enforce the difference in our styles.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was taught how to shoot a shotgun, the first thing they did was to determine if I was left-eye dominant or right-eye dominant. That determines if you shoot right handed or left, which is interesting, because it has nothing to do with being right- or left-handed. They made us point with a finger to a distant object, and then close the right eye and then alternate and close the left. Whichever eye remained on the distant object when open determined what our dominant sight was. I remember thinking it odd that my friend and I were both right-handed, but he had to shoot left-handed because he was left-eye dominant.
ReplyDeleteNow, in terms of difference in photo subjects, I'm sure that has a lot to do with personality such as male/female, short/tall, introverted/extroverted, etc. I for one like to take pictures close-up or from a low angle, becuase I walk around all day seeing the tops of peoples heads and the dust on high shelves. It sucks being tall. Its like seeing the ass-end of the world all the time.
Perhaps my object isn't distant enough - when I do it my finger hops from side to side and ends up about equally to the left or right of the object. I may also need pointing lessons...
ReplyDeleteDo you use your right eye for photography too? It sounds like you use photos to see the world differently, rather than to document how the world appears to you on an everyday basis -- is that fair? I think that's also an difference between Bill and I too. He shows the world how it is as a whole and I pick out details that might be overlooked (?).
Now the question is: what causes eye dominance? Is it simple genetics? Or deeper brain-circutry stuff? Did they tell you about that? Do fathers and sons tend to shoot with the same hands?
Just make sure you are focusing on your object and not your finger. I'm not sure what creates this eye dominance, it certainly appeared to be random when we were thinking about it as kids. I tihnk we need a larger sample pool than me and my dad and my friend and his dad to determine if its genetic.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with your thoughts on why people tend take different styles of pictures. Maybe we just use it to fill a void in our everyday experiences.
Here is our data:
ReplyDeleteCarrie: Left Eye
Kevin: Right Eye
Another interesting difference when we turn a camera to get a vertical shot, I turn it right and Carrie turns it left. We can always tell who took it base on the orientation. But when it comes to physical activities (sports) I am much better at using either hand than Carrie. I think that it is much more than simple left-brain and right-brained people. I don't like that kind of "pooling" of people.
Here is another question to ask: If you use a microscope with a single eyepiece so you have to close one eye to comprehend the image?
Kevin: I can keep both eyes open and clearly understand the image. I take that as able to close off the input from one eye.
Carrie: She has to have the second eye closed to process the image.
The question becomes does this reflect the way we process our visual signals?
I like to look at pieces of objects as does Carrie. It is all how you like to see the world. There is the wholistic approach or seeing the world as a series of building blocks.
More comments to come,
Kevin