Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Act of choice

We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice.
John Berger

10 comments:

BLACK AND WHITE said...

our intuition of choice is our best friend:)

IstvanBloggin' said...

I agree.
I guess we are not aware that everything we do, even the simple act of looking at something is actually an act of choice. And i guess we are not aware of the huge number choices we have made during the day...

Anonymous said...

or can we only really see what we can accommodate mentally? i think we often attach our past baggage to new information until we can be truely open to understanding it. r.

IstvanBloggin' said...

Yes, i guess looking doesn't always mean seeing.

Luísa Santos said...

very true. and yes, looking and seeing are not the same act but in this case I think it's meant as seeing. The choice to see as something that needs the 1st look (a choice in itself, I agree w Thinker) and then we are able to choose what we want to see. just my interpretation, though. love this quote.

IstvanBloggin' said...

I agree. And by choosing what we want to see, we chose our world in a way. We live in a chaos of variety, our world is polluted with information, images, everything. So if we want a clear image of something, we have to chose an object and focus our camera.

Luísa Santos said...

exactly! and now you are speaking as a photographer :D

IstvanBloggin' said...

Yes, photographers choose what to see, they are like hunters choosing their prey (as Henri Cartier-Bresson once said in a quote: "Once the picture is in the box, I'm not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren't cooks. ")

ArtPropelled said...

You've no idea how many times I've thought that,lately. Often I will think "but it was there all the time...what took me so long?"

IstvanBloggin' said...

Yes, it's all there, we just have to choose.