'Mindflow'

I have a confession to make: I pine to coin neologisms. Useful terms that become part of the vocabulary. I'm jealous of my friend Michael Reichmann, who coined the term "pixel-peeping." I didn't like that term at first, but now I have as little objection to it as anyone else: it's useful, and it has become widely accepted and widely used. It's just part of the vocabulary.

So cool.

My attempts under this heading always come to nothing. I have to face the fact that I don't have the knack.

Despite this, it appears that I coined a[nother] term a few days ago: "mindflow."

Sounds like some bogus exercise at a New Age awareness seminar, doesn't it?

But it still might be a useful idea. Mindflow—related to workflow—the mental processes and process issues you go through when photographing.

I've claimed in the past, for instance, that when you have B&W film in a film camera, eventually you learn to "see" B&W and "ignore" color. Because that was true for me. (No longer.) But when the camera records color, I simply can't ignore color. I can't "see" with a "colors camera" (as Zander used to call it) the same way I do when my only option is B&W. This is why I've long wanted a B&W-only digital camera such as the new Leica M Monochrom. Even though other people refuse to even grasp the argument.

But this, to me, is a mindflow issue. Not a technical one.

I've claimed the same thing about prime (single-focal-length) lenses: that when you photograph for long enough with just one lens, eventually you can see the world—visualize—just how the lens will see, without trying. You can frame pictures by looking around with your eyes, without needing to look through the viewfinder. Another mindflow issue.

Also in the category: your ideas about what or why you're photographing. Might have to do with meaning (for instance, maybe you're documenting housing collapse or migratory butterflies) or it might have to do with visual passions (you love the idea of pristine untouched wilderness and seek that out to photograph) or subject obsessions (Joel Meyerowitz once did a whole project on redheads*).

If you accept the definition, you'll see that it's an essential but under-discussed topic. Or family of topics. Mindflow.

But the term is certain to not catch on, if my track record is anything to go by.

Maybe I should ask MR what he'd call it.

Mike

*Back when he was one. Maybe now he'd do a project on bald guys.

Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
A book of interest today:

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Michael Stevens: "You write, '...when you photograph for long enough with just one lens, eventually you can see the world—visualize—just how the lens will see, without trying.' I found exactly that last weekend. After over a year of rarely using anything other than my M4-P with collapsible Summicron attached, I went out with my little Olympus XA (with its fixed 35mm lens). When I went to take my first shot of the day I lifted the camera to my eye and immediately had to take three steps forward."

gerry: "Mindflow = Stream of consciousness (psychology) 'refers to the flow of thoughts in the conscious mind.'"

Mike replies: So not really a good term for what I mean then. Told you I was no good at this.

Ben Rosengart: "Funny bit of synchronicity. I saw this blog post immediately after a phone call with a friend who appears in Redheads."

John Voorhees: "At my first job as a newspaper photographer we shot B&W and color and I had a camera body for each one. This let me see in color or B&W depending on which one I was using. (It also led to the best image being in the wrong camera.) I find now that I can 'see' in B&W if I visualize the image as a B&W print.

"As a side note, an image of my wife, then my 21-year-old girlfriend, appears in Redheads."

Comments

[Carl Blesch]

I remember when you proposed the term "mm-e" for a DX or 4/3 or point 'n shoot lens's equivalent field of view in full-frame 35mm. Sounded like a good idea to me.
Carl

[Mike Johnston]

Carl,
Yeah, several opinionators on the web wrote about why that wasn't necessary, and then continued to spell out the meaning, e.g., "...which would be XXmm in 35mm equivalent...."

Sigh.

Mike

P.S. I also thought we should reserve the term "photography" for optical-chemical photography and use "digital imaging" (or invent a new term) for digital imaging. That suggestion was about as effective as holding up your hand to stop an incoming tsunami.

[Stephen Gilbert]

Wow. Think she's a natural redhead?

[Patrick Perez]

I'm already on record here on TOP for proposing that the popular sport played with the patchwork ball be known as Un-American Football.

I've also tried coining a few phrases, my favorite being: Like minds think they're great.

Patrick

[Alex]

"Bokeh" may not have been a neologism, but surely introducing it to the West counts for something.

[John H]

Didn't you define the spelling of 'bokeh'?

[Giovanni Maggiora]

Mindflow. I like it. Yes, it sounds a bit like zen and archery, but isn't photography the alignement of... (HC-B may he rest in peace).
And wordminting aside, yes it is totally true for me too: digital is too open! The moment you upload a RAW file without instantly applying a basic B&W conversion, it's impossible to ignore those colors. our brains were built for color and B&W is only a fiction that we can accept if we mutilate ourselves. So yes, the Leica MM makes a lot of perverted sense...
And as for primes and only shooting with one focal length, I am with you there too. Most days I never change the lens I got out of the door with (lately, a 28mm). Carry a 50mm as a Linus blanket, but it stays in the bag. Honestly hardly ever use the 21 or the 90. The 35 is for when I don't want to pick sides...
Take care Mike. Sorry for the shooting, yet another senseless tragedy too close to home.

[Steve Jacob]

I suppose the million dollar question is can you alter your mind flow to suit a new reality? Indeed should you?

My mindflow works fine with colour/digital workflow, but I had nothing to un-learn, so it was just a progressive grind to get over the steepest part of the learning curve.

I have no idea how I would feel if I had spent 25 years processing black and white film and shooting exclusively with primes.

Ctein seems to have switched mindflow with relative ease, but as a physicist he probably finds the theory easy to understand, which is half the battle.

[Peter Morgan]

Type "Mindflow" into http://books.google.com/ngrams/ (often useful for this kind of issue). I'm afraid it's been around, not a lot, but it's out there.

[Allan Ostling]

By defining mindflow as "the mental processes and process issues you go through when photographing" you limit this term to a specific craft. Only photographers can have mindflow? You might want to broaden that definition a bit. But when you do, you will see that all you are talking about is cogitation.

[Dan Smith]

Feel free to use the term Pixelography. I came up with it some years back when all the arguments were Film vs Digital. Now, whatever floats your boat. Tho I do label those prints made with the hand held scanners Pixelographs when hanging in shows.

[Jeff]

There are several companies, and a band, that have used the term mindflow.

[DavidB]

Mindflow.

I get it - I like it - I'll use it - and I'll give proper credit!

Thanks.

DB

[Colin Work]

Hmmm - now I always think of photography as the recording of a still image on any media. Digital imaging always conjures up Photoshop in my head - ie. creating new images from already captured pixels.

As to the original topic, I've recently come to better understand this as I have been asked to shoot video as well as stills on recent jobs. Given that I have a video capable DSLR, my immediate reaction was "how hard can it be?"

Well, remarkably so as it turns out (for me at least). It requires such a different 'mindflow' that not only does it make it difficult for a long term stills shooter, but makes it next to impossible to do both on the same assignement.

Cheers,

Colin

[Nicholas Condon]

Well, Mike, you did help popularize "bokeh," and I've seen people (other than you) use "mm-e".

And I like "mindflow;" it's a nice short term for a very complicated set of issues.

Perhaps you just need to adjust your word coinage mindflow to get your neologisms to stick better?

[hugh crawford]

But Mindflow is apparently already taken http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindflow
by a "progressive metal band from Brazil"

It seems like what you are thinking of could be described as "constrained imaging" just like constrained writing, for instance writing a novel with no verbs , or without the letter e.

Avoiding any and all alliteration alternatives also accomplishes an analogous albeit annoying affect.

[Mark kinsman]

Mike, to some people, digital imaging is just fauxtography

[Jonathan Auch]

I take people out and around NYC for Street Photography workshops and tours. While we shoot I teach and talk. Often I talk about the 'flow', 'zone' or 'headspace' that I get in while I am shooting. I try to break it down so that it accessible, but have never had a good term for the Jazz-like mental process that occurs on the street. I think I've found it.

I have a few street photography tours this week. I will definitely be using; 'mindflow'. I will report back.

[Raymond Alexander]

Hmmm... This isn't a new term. I remember it being in use in the late sixties/early seventies, usually in the context of the use of LSD and mescaline.

[Andrew Kirk]

Write some poetry. Neologisms will sprout like horworms on a tomato.

[Andy Kowalczyk]

If I correctly remember some old Sunday Morning Photographer article, didn't you have a hand in "bokeh?"

[Dennis]

Interesting - I was going to propose that there's already a similar word that describes this: mindset. But then I got to wondering whether it's how ones mind "works" or is "predisposed to work". Whichever the case may be, I share those mindsets or mindflows with you - I can't bring myself to think b&w when I have (ok, had) color film in the camera or when shooting a digital camera. I dabble in occasional b/w conversions, but even when they turn out well, I'm bothered by the fact that I didn't set out to shoot in b/w. And I love shooting with a single prime lens; I go out and seek things well suited to whatever that focal length is.
I think this ties into why I look for cameras that are fun to use and don't easily adapt to just any camera, regardless of its capabilities.
I also agree that it's probably underdiscussed, as it explains silly arguments over whether it's "best" to shoot in "M" mode or whether it's worthwhile this feature or that on a camera when you can do it a different way. Why it bothers some people that Fuji's raw files don't play well with 3rd party software even if the jpegs are downright amazing. (Or is that "workflow" ? If you prefer a certain workflow does it become mindflow ?)

[Bob Munro]

Michael, these thoughts brought to mind Cole Thompsons recent blog post here ( www.photographyblackwhite.com/capture-color-digital-images ) - don't know how to insert a link here! I have been doing this with my Sony Nex7 recently. Setting the camera creative setting to B & W displays the view in B & W, but the image is recorded as a RAW file. I have been attempting to do just what you're suggesting - getting my "mindflow" in B & W mode! See - it's already catching on!
BTW, I recently attended a street photography workshop with Peter Turnley in Istanbul and that was a real treat! Watching him "work" a scene was a revelation, and I notice that he is now using one of the new Leica M's and posting exclusively B & W on Facebook.

[Burt]

The thing is this: You have to let these things happen naturally. The second you come out and proclaim that you've coined a new term, you've effectively killed it. These terms have to belong to those who use them. Reichmann may have coined "pixel peeping", but how many people actually know this? If he had a page on his site proclaiming "I Have Coined a New Term: Pixel Peeping", the people would have never taken to it. So, mindflow is dead, but don't let that stop you. Just spew forth to the wall until something sticks!

[Daniel Moore]

SLR: Single Lens Reflexion

[John Camp]

This could turn into an interesting Internet experiment. Spend a while developing a neologism, then bring it back here and we can all take part in a conspiracy to spread the word -- ask everybody to put it on their Facebook page, (falsely) attribute it celebrities, and so on. Deliberately see if we can spread it. Or maybe we could do an eponym instead...but then, "Johnson" (and by, er, extension, Johnston) is already taken:

MAUDE
In a sense, yes. Elfranco, my robe.
My art has been commended as being
strongly vaginal. Which bothers
some men. The word itself makes
some men uncomfortable. Vagina.

DUDE
Oh yeah?

MAUDE
Yes, they don't like hearing it and
find it difficult to say. Whereas
without batting an eye a man will
refer to his "dick" or his "rod" or
his "Johnson".

DUDE
"Johnson"?

-----

I think "Mike" might be taken, too. But maybe reprocessing RAW digital images to black and white could be called "Miking" them?"

[Eddie]

No, please don't. I'm sorry but mindflow is a terrible term. Reeks of someone trying to make up a new term. And pixel-peeping is almost as bad.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

I've been using mm-e for a while. I wonder if I got it here? Perfectly possible. Thanks, I find it useful!

Sometimes I spell out "equivalent" if I oubt the readers will understand without.

[Stephen Penland]

When you described "mindflow," the basic premise of the book, "The Zen of Creativity" by photographer and zen master John Daido Loori came to my mind. You're on the Zen path: slow down, be mindful of your surroundings in a significant way, be mindful of what you are experiencing in a significant way, you will "know" your equipment without having to think about it, and as a result the scene in your viewfinder and final image on screen or in print will be all the better because of your open mindfulness (your mindflow). I like this counterpart to "workflow," and I think it's closer to the essence of good photography.

[D. Hufford.]

Nah. Won't work. At least for me, for I rarely get past the brain-fart stage.

[jean-louis salvignol]

Ah! redheads ... my fantasy of all ages, which I share with Gustave Courbet and his illustrious model Joanna Hifferman:

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/29.100.63

http://www.petitpalais.paris.fr/fr/collections/le-sommeil

And his masterpiece, "l'origine du monde":

http://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/collections/catalogue-des-oeuvres/notice.html?no_cache=1&nnumid=69330&cHash=b621bee537

"La pittura e cosa mentale" - Leonardo da Vinci

[Andrea]

@Bob Munro: I'm with you, I started in March shooting with only one lens (an old Pentacon 28mm manual focus)and EFV display set to b/w.
Even with naked eye, while going around with the camera I've learned to "disregard" colors and pay attention to lights/shadows balancing and composition.
Yes, the brain is a wonderful tool that can be programmed as you like!

[h.linton]

Mike, to some people, digital imaging is just fauxtography

Hmmm... This isn't a new term. I remember it being in use in the late sixties/early seventies, usually in the context of the use of LSD and mescaline...

He-he, how come there isn't a like button in the comments section?

BTW - I think "flow" is really the term to use as the mind is capable of anything but: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29

[Richard K]

Regarding seeing in B&W, the Olympus PEN cameras have Art Filters (e.g. Grainy Film II for a moderate contrast B&W effect) that can be applied to just the jpeg (when shooting RAW + jpeg) and can be previewed on the rear LCD screen before clicking the shutter.

I don't know if these work the same way on the OMD or if you can preview the image as you take it through the EVF, but it might be worth investigating.

You can then do the "propper" B&W conversion from the RAW file according to your prefferred workflow (sorry, mindflow!).

[David Bennett]

Mike, you can switch on the B&W option on your GF1, can't you?

[Jan K]

Every serious photographer will instantly recognize your definition of mindflow from experience. The example of a lens mindflow drill most of all. Just using a 300mm prime (legzoomer) all day for portraits at events changes your regular standard zoom-mindflow forever.

OT:In addition to Patrick Perez: maybe the word 'football' should never have become part of the term (Un)American Football, considering the actual use of that particular bodypart. Then maybe we wouldn't have to wonder what kind of mindflow the inventor of the term 'soccer' was in....

[Andrew Molitor]

Land had this idea about painting/drawing, that the process of making art through these media was one of reacting to the subject AND to the partially finished work. His Polaroid process was intended, in part, to enable the same sort of process for photographers.

With digital and chimping, I find myself doing something similar, groping toward the final result by a process of looking at the subject, looking at the back of the camera, adjusting, and shooting again.

That's mindflow right there, I'd say.

[Aaron L]

So the point of this post is really to pre-condition your readers as to your intention to get a Leica Monochrom. Smooth!

[Andreas]

What a coincidence: just read Middlesex, where the narrator had an erotic encounter with a red-haired girl, which he used to call the "obscure object". What's about that obsession with readheads?

Btw., mindflow might not be your best linguistic feat, however the concept you mean is much more important than workflow!

[Arun]

I coined a new term "nanomanagement" inspired by a certain individual I dealt with.

A google search showed me someone had beaten me to it :-(

[Luke Robinson]

I was just going to make the same comment as Richard K and David Bennet.

On my Canon DSLRs I have occasionally put them into B&W mode for composing monochrome shots. The RAW is recorded in full colour but when reviewing the images they are rendered as B&W. If you want to preserve the B&W image you can always do RAW+JPEG and render an image at capture time to use as a template for a later, "proper" B&W conversion if desired.

[Sean]

Clutter priority. Having too much photo gear and not enough pictures

Amateur priority. Wanting to buy a 100-400mm to "Cover the bases"

They might be out there already

[scott kirkpatrick]

Was Meyerowitz ever a redhead? He doesn't look it in the picture that appears in Cape Light, and by the time Bystander appeared he was well on the way to his present look.

scott

[Keith B]

Mike, I could swear that just a few months ago, I learned that you, in an article on Luminous Landscape, had coined the term "micro contrast" as it is currently used in reference to the clarity of small details in a photograph. No?

[ian Loveday]

A neologism is created by a neologist - one who studies and creates new words. Can I claim the rights to neologist? of course the world has many amateur neologists, maybe a university somewhere should offer a course in neology, then someone could become its professor of neology. The chair's waiting for you Mike! ....apocryphal question: we are I suppose talking about English, do other languages have the same neological dilemmas? I once asked a chinese friend why their ideogram for a television wasn't a square with a little aerial ontop. I was told that new ideogram characters were not allowed, only composites of old ones.

[Mike Johnston]

Keith,
I certainly don't think so.

Mike

[Sarge]

I didn't know you coined "mm-e". I use it along with Zeiss' convention of putting f/stop ahead of focal length, as in "1.8/75mm (112.5 mm-e)." Very convenient.

I don't know if anyone else had been regularly using "lens blur" as a synonym to bokeh, before your preview of the RX1.

As for mindflow, it strikes me as an apt description of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' Autumn of the Patriarch which contains not a single punctuation, but can be read from cover-to-cover in one sitting.

Is there any suitable candidate for your "DMD" among the recent crop of mirrorless digitals?

Two neo-acronyms in a decade(?) is not bad.

[ctein]

Dear Mike,

Don't feel inhibited from using "mindflow." Most terms of art in any discipline are existing words that are overlaid with new meanings. You may not be able to take credit for full invention, but coinage is entirely allowable.

I see mm-e or mm-equivalent used all over the place, so I think you have some legitimate claim to proud parenthood and primacy. Whether or not you're truly the first, we'll leave for the editors of the OED to sort out.

(Too bad you got the spelling of boke wrong, though {g.d.&r}.)

But as for digital "imaging" instead of "photography?" That one was never your call. It's a word of general usage, not a term of art. Entirely the province of the vox populi, and for 99% of them, if it looks like a duck and waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. What's under the hood? Who cares! Really!

Of course, that ship is already over the horizon and rapidly the most common use is becoming that there is "photography" and "film (or analog, if one must) photography." Just as "computers" are assumed to be electronic rather than mechanical or human and "telephones" are assumed to have buttons rather than dials.

I have this vague recollection that at one time, care was taken to talk about "film" as opposed to plate photography. No doubt there are those who mourn the degradation of the art form because we need no longer remember that. My heart doth bleed.

At some point, likely within your lifetime, the plurality will not even remember there was film photography when the subject comes up, any more than they remember ambrotypes. Odd as that may sound. I toured the Houston Spaceflight Center last month and the guide was showing off the Apollo-era mission control room; he asked, at one point, if anyone knew what the perforated metal dials on each work console were. After several seconds, someone raised their hand and said, "Telephones?" It HAS been a while since the US went touch-tone.

pax / Ctein
==========================================
-- Ctein's Online Gallery http://ctein.com
-- Digital Restorations http://photo-repair.com
==========================================