Perception and Imaging, 4th Edition

Book description

How do you experience a photograph? What do you want a viewer to feel when they look at your image?

Perception and Imaging explains how we see and what we don't see. Relevant psychological principles will help you predict your viewer's emotional reaction to your photographic images, giving you more power, control, and tools for communicating your desired message. Knowing how our minds work helps photographers, graphic designers, videographers, animators, and visual communicators both create and critique sophisticated works of visual art. Benefit from this insight in your work.

Topics covered in this book: gestalt grouping, memory and association, space, time, color, contours, illusion and ambiguity, morphics, personality, subliminals, critiquing photographs, and rhetoric.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half Title
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Contents
  7. Preface to the Third Edition
  8. Preface to the Fourth Edition
  9. Acknowledgments
  10. 1. Selection
    1. Ganzfeld
    2. Figure–Ground
      1. Figure–Ground Boundary
      2. Graphic Symbols
      3. What’s in a Name?
      4. Graininess and Noise
      5. Resolution
      6. Digital Resolution
      7. Figure–Ground Enhancement
      8. Nonvisual Figure–Ground
    3. Notan
    4. Visual Search
    5. Camouflage
    6. Negative Space
    7. Key Words
    8. Notes
  11. 2. Gestalt Grouping
    1. Gestalt
      1. Field Theory and Gestalt
      2. Gestalt Laws
      3. Proximity
      4. Similarity
      5. Continuity
      6. Closure
      7. Closure and Nonclosure
    2. Gestalt Critique
      1. Man as Participant
      2. Gestalt Laws as a Means
      3. A Word of Caution
    3. Pragnanz
      1. Seeing
      2. Order and Complexity
    4. Symmetry
    5. Captions, Copy, Gestalt
    6. Key Words
    7. Notes
  12. 3. Memory and Association
    1. Short-Term Memory/Long-Term Memory
      1. From STM to LTM
      2. Body as Memory
      3. Mnemonics
    2. Visual Memory/Color Memory
      1. Sequencing
    3. Association
      1. Advertisements
      2. Props (Signifiers)
      3. Colors
      4. Equivalents
      5. Synesthesia
      6. Onomatopoeia
    4. Metaphors in Photography
    5. Conceptual Photography
      1. Conceptual Advertisements
      2. Rebuses and Pictograms
      3. Acronyms
    6. Key Words
    7. Notes
  13. 4. Space, Time, and Color
    1. Space
      1. Camera as a Space Vehicle
      2. Anisotropicity
      3. Rule of Thirds
      4. Golden Section and Fibonacci Numbers
      5. Convexity/Concavity
      6. Transparency
    2. Time (Movement)
      1. Implied Motion
      2. Disappearance
    3. Color
      1. Color Notation
      2. Munsell System
      3. Pantone®
      4. CIE System
      5. CIE Chromaticity Diagram
      6. Luminance (Value or Brightness)
      7. Naming Colors within the CIE Map
      8. Color Gamuts (Color Space)
      9. The Visual Field
      10. Flare Desaturates Colors
      11. Color Test Chart
      12. Color Reproduction
      13. Subtractive Systems
      14. Additive Systems
      15. Color Is a Chameleon
      16. Constancy
      17. Metamerism
      18. Simultaneous Contrast and Assimilation
      19. Color Dependency
      20. Phosphors and Pointillism
      21. Color Modality
      22. Complementary Colors
      23. Color Temperature
      24. Color Names
      25. Color and Synesthesia
      26. Synesthesia and Photography
      27. Color Connotations
      28. Color versus Color
    4. Key Words
    5. Notes
  14. 5. Contours
    1. Common Contour
      1. A Frog and a Squirrel
    2. Subjective Contour
    3. Mach Bands
    4. Visual Vibrations
    5. Photographic Edge Effects
      1. Acutance
      2. Digital Sharpness
      3. Cornsweet Effect
      4. Development
    6. Key Words
    7. Notes
  15. 6. Illusion and Ambiguity
    1. Trompe l’Oeil
    2. Space, Time, and Color Illusions
    3. Geometric Illusions
      1. Reversibles
    4. Time (Movement) Illusions
      1. Computer Graphics and Animation
      2. The Pulfrich Effect
      3. The Waterfall Effect
    5. Color Illusions
    6. Size–Distance Tradeoffs
      1. Dutch Cabinets
    7. Size–Size Dependency
      1. Shrinking Size, Increasing Distance
      2. Emmert’s Law
      3. Size–Distance Reversal
    8. Ambiguity
    9. Key Words
    10. Notes
  16. 7. The Morphics
    1. Biomorphic
    2. Isomorphic
    3. Anthropomorphic
    4. Zoomorphic
    5. Theriomorphic
    6. Mechanomorphic
    7. Anamorphic
    8. Key Words
    9. Notes
  17. 8. Personality
    1. Projection, Introjection, and Confluence
      1. Projection
      2. Introjection
      3. Confluence
    2. Personality Types
    3. Inside the Psyche
    4. Right Brain and Left Brain
    5. Personal Space
    6. Children
    7. Field Dependency
    8. Leveling and Sharpening
    9. Mindfulness in Photography
    10. Basic Mindfulness
    11. Contemplative Photography
    12. Walker Visuals
    13. Image Therapeutics
    14. Synectics
      1. Edwin Land and Steve Jobs
    15. Key Words
    16. Notes
  18. 9. Subliminals
    1. The Retina
      1. Photopic/Scotopic Vision
      2. Luminance Factor
      3. Ambient Light
      4. Reading Pictures
    2. Embeds
      1. Secondary Images
      2. Faces
    3. Pupillometrics
    4. Archetypes
    5. Kilroy
    6. Key Words
    7. Notes
  19. 10. Critiquing Photographs
    1. Critique as Evaluation
    2. Validity
    3. Variability
    4. Photographers’ Comments
    5. Critiquing
    6. Clustering
      1. Relationships
      2. Direction
      3. Nostalgia
      4. Composition
      5. On Location
    7. Semantic Differential
    8. Critique Using Group Dynamics
    9. Critiquing without Words
    10. Semiotics
      1. Saussure and Peirce
      2. Representation
      3. Analyzing an Ad
      4. Designing a Photograph for an Ad
      5. Semiotic Operations
      6. Other Applications
      7. Photographic Realism
      8. Photographic Maps
    11. Key Words
    12. Notes
  20. 11. Rhetoric
    1. Using the Rhetorical Matrix
      1. Where to Begin
      2. Horse and Truck
      3. Intuition First
    2. Addition
      1. Identity
      2. Similarity
      3. Difference
      4. Opposition
      5. False Homology
    3. Suppression
      1. Identity
      2. Similarity
      3. Difference
      4. Opposition
      5. False Homology: Ambiguity
      6. False Homology: Paradox
    4. Substitution
      1. Identity
      2. Similarity
      3. Difference
      4. Opposition
      5. False Homology: Ambiguity
      6. False Homology: Paradox
    5. Exchange
      1. Identity
      2. Similarity
      3. Difference
      4. Opposition
      5. False Homology: Ambiguity
      6. False Homology: Paradox
    6. Words, Sounds, and Rhetoric
    7. Definitions of Rhetoric Terms
      1. Addition
      2. Suppression
      3. Substitution
      4. Exchange
    8. Key Words
    9. Notes
  21. 12. Black and White Photography
    1. Why Black and White?
    2. The Catalyst between Generations
    3. The Abstraction and Attraction of Black and White
    4. Is More Really Less?
    5. The Threats to the Perception of B&W as Factual
  22. Appendix A: Additional Concepts
    1. Notes
  23. Appendix B: Answers to Selected Exercises
    1. Chapter 1: Selection
      1. Answer to the Star Visual Search
    2. Chapter 6: Illusions and Ambiguity
      1. Answer to Figure 6.11: Flying Women
    3. Chapter 7: The Morphics
      1. Answer to Figure 7.9: Swedish Gate Problem
    4. Chapter 9: Subliminals
      1. Answer to Figure 9.12: Hide-and-Seek
  24. Appendix C: Ads from the Past
    1. Emblems
    2. Great Ideas of Western Man
      1. Kodak Ad
      2. Chanel Ad
      3. Maidenform Ad
      4. The Brandy of Napoleon
      5. Warhol Vodka
    3. Notes
  25. Bibliography
  26. Index
  27. Index to Quotes

Product information

  • Title: Perception and Imaging, 4th Edition
  • Author(s): Richard D. Zakia
  • Release date: February 2013
  • Publisher(s): Focal Press
  • ISBN: 9781136092374