68 take morecompelling learning abouthow we seecanhelpyou By NealMatthews What scienceis pictures Pho pop photo —to just shoot without thinking and ask questions later about why it’s a good picture. photos.) The key when looking through the viewfinder is to tap into the most primal attractors of memorable images. (See the sidebars for ways to put vision theory into practice in your And if you know empirically what entices the eye, you should theoretically make more Fight orFlightsituations. August 2008 corners, andjunctions, as welltofaces,whiletheunconsciousmind is attunedto photographing atrainwreck—the eyephysiologicallysharpensandisdrawn tolines, in objectiveexperiments. Forinstance,nowweknowwhyyoucan’tgo wrong information that photographers (and camera engineers) can exploit right now. Some long-heldbeliefsaboutwhatmakesagood picturehavebeenconfirmed the norm. They and other scientists around the world are churning out a trove of at risk of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder move less methodically than “machine vision” for robot eyes. They’ve already shown how the eyes of kids and graduate students are performing basic research that may help develop t at the University of Southern California’s iLab ( an associate professor of computer science, , and before directing the eyes to move. puts all that information back together into a coherent composite My eye tracks were being recorded by vision researcher Laurent Itti, of a scene, where they are broken down even further. Then the concerned with faces, colors, shapes, motion, and many other aspects ogra electronically parcels parts of images to different cortical areas Ey animal selves and then with our acculturated minds. My eyes scanned the photo of two women almost the way a the first few milliseconds. In other words, we see first with our after taking the reflexive glances all primate eyes perform within monkey’s would, going first to the faces, specifically features that researchers have found, we recognize culture-defined beauty only would indicate friend, foe, or possible mate, then to the brightest attentional deployment” in scientific lingo. That’s because, objects in the image: a blue bottle, a pendant. Surprisingly, it took consciously ordered them to spend time on Jolie—“top-down went first to the face of the other woman in the picture until I famously gorgeous—face in the photo, Angelina Jolie. forever (almost three seconds) for me to look at the famous—and We process visual information very quickly, as the brain In this impulsive type of seeing, called “bottom-up,” my eyes e s—nostrils—lips—shin WWW.POPPHO G T O.COM t uide he he p her’s ilab.usc.edu Y E The things. ). Professors t ye o 69

Paradis Media/Getty Images/Uppercut the photographer’s guide to the eye Lines In principle: Eye-movement tracking shows that the eye is drawn to lines, is even more taken with angles, and returns repeatedly to corners. The Mach Effect describes how the eye without thinking about what our searches out luminance differences by neurologically exaggerating bodies are doing, such as walking contrast along edges. In practice: We love lines, especially and adjusting our posture. Koch horizons. So use them to your advantage: Keep lines straight, calls this kind of action a “zombie include points of intersection, and put your subject close to corners. agent,” defined as “a stereotyped, rapid, and effortless sensory- motor behavior that does not different levels of importance in a balance back from top-down to give rise to a conscious sensation. scene diminishes. seeing bottom-up,” Gazzaley says. Consciousness for this behavior His advice for taking good “There’s a price in being goal- may come later or not at all.” pictures? “You have to devolve oriented, too top-down—you miss In top-down, goal-driven a couple notches, to shift the the flowers along the stream bank attentional mode, we move our eyes 3 to 5 times per second, about 200,000 times per day. In bottom- up, we don’t move our eyes, but we see 10 times faster. For a photographer, the ideal is to appeal to both ways of seeing. How far apart are they? USC’s Laurent Itti frames the scale in terms of painters: “Bottom-up is Robert Rauschenberg, top-down is Thomas Kinkade. You feel more comfortable with familiarity [Kinkade], but surprise and novelty [Rauschenberg] keep you looking.”

from coming back to a spot we’ve SIGHT LINES: The lines zig-zagging all Go ape Nature, then already considered until after over this photo taken at a Global Action If you’ve seen particularly nurture we’ve scanned all the hotspots. for Children press conference represent evocative photos on the walls of Pioneering Russian vision But attention and eye movements the path my eyes took when I first saw your hospital, there’s a chance hildren researcher A.L. Yarbus proved interplay, so there’s some neural the picture. Tracked by vision researcher Adam Gazzaley shot them. “The through experiments in the 1950s system of checking off objects in Lawrence Itti of USC’s iLab, my gaze most powerful photos are warm that people who think differently descending order of salience. went first to GAC’s executive director, and comfortable, but also new and

ction for C actually see differently: How they “Saliency is low-level surprise,” Jennifer Delaney, then to shiny objects, exciting,” says the MD/PhD, who interpret the object they’re looking explains , a leading and only after that to the movie star. teaches cognitive neuroscience at determines which object they vision researcher on both the and runs the Neuroscience move their eyes to next. biology and engineering faculty at Imaging Center at University of One widely accepted theory California Institute of Technology, down spotlighting takes over: “Of California, San Francisco (www.

es aand Global A posits that when we view a who has an interesting glossary special significance are images gazzaleylab.ucsf.edu). g scene, our brain deconstructs it of cognition on his website, of biological relevance—like fear, His first photographs depicted into several overlays, including www.klab.caltech.edu/~koch. sex, gender, aggression—which brain slices and neurons, taken contrast, color, movement, shape, “Faces are salient, as are motion, are much more dependent on through a microscope. As he orientation, and other cues. flickering, contrast—all depending training and culture,” Koch says. studied underlying patterns Within 25 to 30 milliseconds, on the context. We can say with Tests have shown, for example, in the way the brain converts

rtesy ofrtesy Getty Ima our brain recombines these into confidence where you will look that East Asians’ interpretations of images into cognition, he also u a “saliency map” with differently within an image.” facial expressions depend heavily developed a passion for outdoor weighted hotspots rigged to our In the first 150 milliseconds on the expressions of people nature photography, and has sold survival instincts. of looking at a picture, those surrounding the subject in an a lot of prints to hospitals (www. A phenomenon called inhibition elements draw the eye. That’s image. For Mexicans the color blue, comewander.com).

Mark Mainz/co of return prevents our attention bottom-up seeing. Then, top- not black, signals mourning. These Now he studies how peoples’ judgments happen quickly, often light up in an MRI while without conscious thinking. they look at his pictures. His data Such cultural norms dictate not is helping to show why our aging Sensitivity In principle: The eye’s nighttime ISO has been estimated at about 800. Since day vision is about 600 times less only the way we interpret images brains find it increasingly difficult sensitive to light, on a sunny day your eyes have an ISO of close to 1. but the unconscious motion of our to filter out irrelevant information: In practice: The slowest film you can buy is ISO 25, and ISO 50 is eyes when looking at them. As we grow older our saliency low on a digital camera. But with DSLRs now topping ISO 6400, your Most forms of eye movement are maps tend to become more camera sees in the dark better than you do. So enjoy your camera’s unconscious. We do a lot of things crowded and our ability to weigh

nighttime advantage and shoot when the lights are low. 70 pop photo august 2008 pop photo august 2008 71 the photographer’s Surprise In principle: Surprise is the strongest known guide to the eye attractor of human attention. The Bayesian Theory of Surprise provides a mathematical framework for quantifying the degree of incompatible as you rush to the waterfall.” The data in an image. The scientific definition of surprise? A relationship more eye facts idea is to be “more stimulus-driven between objects that changes your beliefs about the world. In than goal-directed.” practice: Depict the unexpected, whether you stumble across it (a Eyes In principle: I ask if that means we need to good reason always to have a camera with you) or set it up. We’re subliminally influenced by the Dynamic regress to seeing like cavemen. faces we see. Pupillometrics has range “Maybe below that,” he replies. demonstrated that when you look In principle: The illuminance ratio “Back to pre-human. Being the USC iLab. It isn’t exactly A brained (e.g., research scientists) at an image of a person, your pupils of sunlight to starlight is 1 billion to 1. predominately top-down is how Clockwork Orange, with pincers have trouble transporting that dilate to the same diameter as the Human vision spans the whole range, we’ve evolved and survived, but holding my eyelids open. But I do knowledge across the synapse person’s in the picture. Tests also have a spread far better than any camera’s. you lose appreciation for the have to keep my chin resting solidly between science and art. shown that people prefer photos in In practice: Use split neutral-density subtleties in the world.” on a T-stand as Laurent Itti raises After my eyes are pointed at which the pupils—human or animal— filters in sunshine and high-dynamic Gazzaley says he’s shot enough my chair to aim my gaze slightly a target at the neutral center are dilated. In practice: Avoid bright, range photography at night to make pictures to be able to put most downward at a high-definition, 42- of the photograph, I bring the pupil-contracting lights in the eyes your pictures look more like your technical questions out of his mind inch TV screen about 4 feet away. pictures up separately on the when shooting portraits, or score actual experience of the scene. as he tries to see bottom-up. “You As he aims a camera at my eyes screen by touching the space some belladonna. have to tune in to what it is that’s to record their movements, I say bar on a computer keyboard. changing your emotions, and try to through clenched teeth, “So all you The results, such as that with Depth capture that,” he says. “What’s the guys in this lab must be excellent Angelina Jolie, match closely the Motion of field In principle: point of the picture? If you can’t photographers, knowing so much way a computer model of human parallax With a focal length of about 22mm describe a photo in three or four about how people see.” sight, based on hundreds of such In principle: Motion parallax helps and a field of view of almost 180 m words, and you don’t feel emotion “That knowledge may work tests, predicted my eyes would us see in 3D because when we stare degrees at its extreme, our eyes while you’re taking it, the viewer against us,” he replies. “None of us move. (You can see more of the at a fixed object and then move are capable of f/3.5 at wide open. won’t feel much either.” are very good photographers.” He details, including brief videos of sideways, nearer objects appear to Then, only the 2 degrees in the confesses to knowing why creating my eye-tracking adventures, at move in the opposite direction while center of the retina, an area called Mega vs. giga “scan lines” for the eye to follow www.PopPhoto.com/eye.) distant things appear to move in the the fovea, is sharp. In practice: Eyes—lips—shiny things. My own through a picture is important, “Where the eye lands in an image same direction. In practice: Place This may be why shallow depth of eyes zombie through 12 photos in but says that the overly left- is not much different between

someone or something moving to field is so visually appealing.S o www.robertbenson.co the right in the foreground (perhaps use it to draw attention straight

a couple walking on the beach), and to your subject. Extreme depth or enson, in the background above their heads shallowness can also introduce an place objects projecting to the left element of surprise to your photo. obert B

(such as cliffs and headlands). R m ; Resolution Black-and- In principle: Looking at a 120- white In principle: Does degree field of view, the eye’s the eye care whether a photo is black- resolution is equivalent to about and-white or color when it comes to 576 megapixels. In practice: where it fixates?N o. More important When we view pictures, our

is contrast and whether an object brains can identify and make www.robertbenson.co creates a “hotspot” for the eye. In associations with a range of blurry practice: When shooting b&w, make and indistinct elements, essentially enson, sure you have enough contrast to filling in the blanks. keep viewers’ attention where you obert B

want it. And don’t forget those all- R important lines and faces. Lighting m ; In principle: Researchers studied 225 paintings going back Faces In principle: three centuries and found that 75 We’re drawn to faces. Our eyes percent depicted the illumination and brain evolved to assess almost source above and to the left. instantaneously whether we are seeing Human testing confirmed that, in

a predator, prey, or mate. In practice: the absence of clues, the brain of www.robertbenson.co Shoot more portraits! Perhaps the right-handers infers illumination ultimate eye-pleasing photo would from above left, while southpaws include scan lines that link a tiger see the light coming from above enson, attacking an ibex to an attractive person right. In practice: If it worked for obert B

looking on. (Good luck with that.) Vermeer, it’ll work for you. R

28 WWW.POPPHOTO.COM pop photo APRIL 2006 the photographer’s Color In principle: Rod vision and cone vision overlap at guide to the eye around 525 nanometers of wavelength, in the green zone. So green is the easiest color to discern at varying levels of luminance. But humans have many more cones sensitive to red than to green or blue, and some advantage of these findings? If women have a fourth type of cone that sees an even broader range you want to draw the eye first of red. In practice: Scenes with a lot of detail and range of light in to something nonhuman in a green areas (grass, leaves) are naturally pleasing. And remember the photograph, leave out faces, be photographic dictum: “If you can’t make it good, make it red.” they human, dog, or mask. If you want to tap the viewer’s strongest subconscious impulses, monkeys and humans,” says USC the top of the lip—people and hide faces or face-like shadows in grad student David Berg, who monkeys look for emotional the trees and clouds. (After all, studies visual stimuli in monkey significance in a face.” painters such as Van Gogh and brains. “Eyes, mouth corners, How can a photographer take Cezanne did this—intentionally or not—and we’re still looking at their pictures.) What’s next? Of course, all this research and development isn’t happening just in order to make you a better photographer, though that’s a nice side benefit. It’s chiefly aimed at industrial applications. Some of this eye-knowledge has already made its way into cameras, which now routinely include face-detection technology in exposure and focusing systems under the assumption— scientifically proven—that faces are what photographers, and viewers, care most about. And there’s more to come. Electrical engineers at Stanford have developed a digital camera with 12,616 tiny lenses that sees in super 3D. They’ve shrunk the imaging sensor’s pixels down to 0.7 microns, less than a tenth the size of the pixels in many DSLRs, and grouped them into arrays topped by miniature lenses much smaller than the ones used in today’s sensors. This, in turn, is helping pave the way for the gigapixel camera, with 100 times more pixels than today’s 10MP clunker. Still, to build better DSLRs isn’t the real goal. It’s to build better robots, with the visual acuity of the Terminator. I have to wonder if such super- seeing cyborgs will one day realize they have more visual power than us, decide to take over, and begin laying waste to major cities. One thing’s certain: We’ll at least know why we can’t tear our eyes away from the pictures. P

xx pop photo APRIL 2006