How do we see? As humans do we have to be familiar with an object or scene to be able to see it, to understand it? Is seeing a learned process, as Jean Piaget suggested? Is it a matter of the hard wiring in the brain, as R.L. Gregory attempted to prove? Is it part of the development of perceptual systems as J.J. Gibson posited? Or….?

The only thing I am really sure of is that the oft stated simile that the “eye is like a camera” is unhelpful in unraveling this conundrum. is a alternative proposition (stated visually above) about the relationship between the seer and the seen, about the relationship between appearance and reality. These thousand words will not attempt to render in language what is intentionally stated in a visual form, rather to discuss the origins and limits of the old classroom chestnut.

I

If the eye is like a camera, then why is it that taking a photograph so often turns out to be more than a matter of pointing and clicking? If the eye were really like a camera, I would bring home fewer photographs like the one in Figure 2, in which the telephone pole seems to grow out of someone’s head. If the eye were like a camera, I would not find—having carefully aimed the lens at the center of my subject—an image that leaves me thinking that I aimed too high (as in Figure 3). These common pitfalls of the amateur photographer suggest some of the ways in which the eye is not in the least like a camera.

Eyes are selective in their perception, creating emphasis based on multiple factors, largely having to do with importance and familiarity of the objects or images in the viewer’s field of vision—that is, importance and familiarity as determined by the human viewer. The camera, on the other hand, discriminates only on the basis of optical parameters, such as focus, depth of field, brightness, contrast, etc. I don't see the telephone pole because, as I am taking the photograph, it is not only of less importance than the human figure, it is a visual pattern which I find insignificant. The camera “sees” them equally.

There are many ways in which eyes and cameras differ in their operation. Binocularity is a central feature of the ways in which we see. Let me add to the list of differences the eye’s process of scanning and shifting foci to construct visual gestalts. However, the most significant capacity of eyes is that they provide images directly to our consciousness. No camera can yet send electrical impulses directly into the brain and have them recognized as image. To “see” anything, that is, to construct an image in your mind, you need your senses, though you may not need your eyes.

II

The list of differences between eyes and cameras does not end there. Nonetheless, “the eye is like a camera,” continues to be so bandied about in elementary and junior high-school classrooms, that it is rarely questioned. Its very banality suggests it is embedded in--and exemplary of—the dominant epistemology. The implicit assumptions are revealing.

The comparison has a wonderfully Newtonian ring about it. It emphasizes the phenomenal and physical properties of visual experience, specifically visible light rays. This aspect of the simile is evident in Figure 5, in which the optical function of the eye is depicted. Here we can see that, optically, there are similarities in the way in the equipment of an eye and a camera. Note the emphasis on the mechanics of light, rather than the process of vision.

Figure 4

Compare it with the diagram of a pinhole camera (Figure 6) below.

Figure 5

A Newtonian consciousness seems particularly evident when you consider that the simile refers to the way our body resembles an optical instrument of human design, rather than the reverse. In this, it privileges the camera as a mechanical model of the eye, almost suggesting that where there are dissimilarities, the eye is inferior, or at least suspect.

Crucial in understanding the world-view contained in the proposition that "the eye is like a camera" is an examination of the relationship between the seer and what is seen. Without question, the assumption is that what is seen is phenomena. I.e., visual perception is defined by the process of reception of light rays either directed or reflected towards an eye. The eye’s role would seem to be the collection of this data, presumably followed by the transmission of this data via the optic nerve to the brain, which then “interprets” the data. The data, it would seem, arrive at the brain in the form of an image, much the same way a photograph is presented to the eyes. While the simile about eyes and cameras does not describe the nature of that interpretation, both leading poles of the theoretical spectrum on the subject of vision have an element of this interpretive function at the heart. Whether perception is a wholly learned process, one that is hardwired into our brain, the role of phenomena is not significantly affected, simply what is done with it.

III

Let’s consider again, Figure 4. What does the perceiver actually “see” when encountering Lady Liberty? Does s/he perceive the shape and color or the statue? Does s/he perceive the similarity to known forms, such as clothed human beings? When you look at Figure 4, are you seeing the Statue of Liberty, or glowing phosphors on your computer screen? Or are you seeing an emblem of liberty, tyranny, hypocrisy, or bad state art? Or......?

is intended to offer an alternative proposition about the relationship of seer and the seen, and another notion of reality than described in the Newtonian universe. It is rooted in no theory, the result of subjective phenomenological and heuristic methods. Regardless, one test is whether the image(s) in are apprehensible without words. If they are, the proposition contained therein might even be true.

Alec MacLeod
Oakland, California
27 November 2004