Photography as psychoanalysis: interesting dialogue

Photography as psychoanalysis



Roberto Watson-García, Nov 30, 2002; 11:07 a.m.I´ve been seeing this young therapist for few weeks now, I had seen
others, but after few sescions I feel they just can´t help me; not
in this case wich photography has have a place to dicuss.
T
Asking him of how important is photography for me, he wanted to see
some of my pictures, he was sorprized of how much I reflect my
personality in them, specialy in those that were out of any
asignment or comerciality, he asked me to choose five imagens or so,
to analize them, things like, what I felt of the image, the people
in it, what could I find in them that at the end were so related to
me, I was amazed how that could work so easily, and every
photography is been a new revelation and a nice way of knowing my
self.


Another thing we discuse was my lefthanded personality, he explained
that beeing lefty and seventh month born baby, I was a very
sensitive person, so the rigth side of my brain was mostly used, a
thing that I liked, but that was important to have a balance to the
left brain side, to excercice it he asked me to use more my rigth
hand in everyday life, trying to motivate energy to flow more from
this side to the other, I asked if I shall use my rigth eye to
photograph, since I was a left eye photographer, and I had clear
that I just couldn´t photograph with my righ eye, he find it very
interesting, and encourage me to try it; he is actualy developing
new ways (for him) of aproach his patients, by what they do as a
craft, for example he has a carpenter that he is working with using
his own work, interesting, what do you think.


Answers


Rob F. , Nov 30, 2002; 11:44 a.m.Response to Photography as phsicoanalisis
Hi, Roberto!

Your therapist is using a variation of art therapy. Art therapy is most
usually done with paintings or drawings the client makes; but I see no
reason why using your own photos as the medium would not be just as
good. It's all about feelings in any case.
Both the left and right eye send information to both
brain hemispheres. It's not as if the right eye only sends info to the
left (or right) hemisphere. The left half of the retina of BOTH eyes
goes to the left hemisphere; and the right half of the retina of both
eyes goes to the right hemisphere. Now, the image is inverted and
reversed left-for-right by the lenses; so the result is that that the
left half of the visual field (of both eyes) goes to the right
hemisphere; and the right visual field goes to the left hemisphere.
So, to stimulate the left hemisphere more than the
right, visually, you would have to somehow block out the left half of
the field of both eyes.
There is hardly a point in doing this, because the left
hemisphere is the verbal one, and is probably best stimulated by
language, not images.

Therefore: stimulate your left hemisphere by letting us hear from you more often on the forum!


Bob Fleischman


Bob Todrick, Nov 30, 2002; 02:25 p.m.Response to Photography as phsicoanalisis
Something
I have been doing for years with my photography. About 12 years ago I
did a series titled 'Feminine Virtue' in which I asked women I knew to
come into my studio and portray a side of themselves that they did not,
on the whole, feel comfortable with or let others know about. One image
was a young women who brought an old wedding photo of her parents in,
and wanted to be tied to it with a piece of chain. It all had to do
with the fact that whe was gay, yet hid it from just about everyone
because she knew her parents would not approve, and so felt chained to
them. The whole series was important to me because I was just learning
the fact that women were not 'sugar and spice and everything
nice'....but just as crazy and sexual as most of my male friends.
Photography for me is just as much about therapy as it is about 'pretty
pictures'.


Michael Bender, Nov 30, 2002; 02:54 p.m.First-class
Roberto,

your photography (as opposed to your English spelling, unfortunately)
is truly first-class. With images like yours, you should in all honesty
publish books and be famous.
If this originality and very distinct view comes out of
your being crazy as a bat, blink your eyes, flap your wings, and get
even crazier: we will enjoy the photographic results.
Please note that I practically never praise in such
terms - you can check my comments etc. and see for yourself that most
of them is er.. less pleasant and in them I too often hit morons on
their heads. I am saying this to repeat once again: you ARE
FIRST-CLASS. Photos like yours should be considered among the best on
this stupid site populated by helpless beginners, and you compare very
favourably with work of the leading world photographers (check
www.magnumphotos.com)
I will return to your photos, and try to comment on some of them to
tell why they strike me as much as they do.
By the way, almost all of them are not graded - is it
because you uploaded very recently, because you did not present them
for viewing, or is it because such photography is much, much above the
level of the average moron that represents the (deciding, unluckily)
majority of photo.net?
Well, as far as your therapist is concerned, allow me to
be even more cynical - he is a businessman first and foremost. So your
photography is something for him to blabber about, happily: it easies
his work, while prolonging sessions, and so providing him with butter
(and red caviar) on his daily piece of bread.
Your eye is excellent; speaking of photography you need
no therapist - all you need is a following of gaping students you as a
guru can gently lead to better ways of seeing the world around


Roberto Watson-García, Dec 01, 2002; 11:40 p.m.Response to Photography as phsicoanalisis
Internet comunication as psicoanalisis

First; thanks for your time to answer to my posted letter, your coments
mean a lot to me, and this place has been for more than two years my
only source to talk about photography, not only leica but all around it
included psicoanalisis, I´ve been not very regular lattely to this
forum, por diferent reasons, but your coments ecourage me to go on.
Thanks again.


Mark Ci, Dec 03, 2002; 07:51 p.m.Response to Photography as phsicoanalisis

Another thing we discuse was my lefthanded personality, he explained
that beeing lefty and seventh month born baby, I was a very sensitive
person...

If I had a therapist who spouted such a combination on pop-psych
nonsense and astrology, for god's sake, I'd be in the market for a
different one.


Roberto Watson-García, Dec 04, 2002; 09:51 a.m.Mark:

Well it sounds logical, and what I wrote not very serious, but this
yung man (my terapist) he is; of course what I wrote is not the all
thing on what he works about, I can say I admire his terapy for the
variety of recurses he uses, and astrology is no one of them for sure,
thanks for your coment anyway Mark.

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