An unconsciousness
Perpaps I have been photographing unconsciously
Lately, I’ve been reorganizing and reviewing my photos, and I have realized something interesting: every flower I’ve photographed so far is one whose name I already know-tulips, roses, cosmos, spider lilies, mimosa, hydrangeas, and cherry blossoms-flowers that clearly demonstrate the passing of seasons. When walking outside or traveling, I thought I was photographing based on my own feelings and instincts. But when I think about it, I’ve come to a vague yet personal conclusion. Ive only been photographing flowers that I recognize-either by sight or by name. In other words, if I don’t know the name of a flower, even if it’s beautifully blooming by the roadside, I won’t notice it, and I won’t point my camera at it
Recently, an idea that left a strong impression on me: Course in General Linguistics by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. I haven’t read the original book, and I have never formally studied linguistics, but I consumed numerous YouTube videos and summary articles on the subject, and found Saussure’s perspective very interesting.
He argued that the world does not have pre-existing entities to which names are attached. Rather, we give names to things in order to define them in contrast to others-creating distinctions through language. Therefore, depending on the language you use, the way you name and perceive the world is different. A well-known example is the distinction between “moths” and “butterflies” in English and Japanese, which are separate terms, but in French, they are both called papillon, without distinction.
To put it bluntly, things do not exist independently waiting to be named; it is the act of naming that brings them into existence-as concepts in our minds. When I first encountered this idea, I was deeply impressed.
Looking at my photo library again with this idea, I feel like I can now understand why I’ve only photographed flowers whose names I know, and why there are almost no flowers I don’t. I used to think that when I was out with my camera. I was freely pressing the shutter as I liked, but it turned out it wasn’t the case at all. When I came across a flower on the street or during my travels, if it was one I recognize, my mind would go “Ah! That flower! I know it!-it’s beautiful!” and I would point my camera at it. To put it more precisely, even though there are many kinds of flowers bloom each the season, my limited vocabulary unconsciously filtered the world. The flowers I don’t know were processed as a mere “noise,” and I only paid attention to the ones I could name. What I didn’t know equated to what I thought of as “unnamed things.”
According to Saussure, different language shape different ways of dividing and perceiving the world. Applying that to my own case, the world I perceive has completely different levels of resolution, depending on how many words I know. The flowers I thought were beautiful when I pressed the shutter… might have been captured in a world of lower resolution through me. I might have unconsciously narrowed my vision to only what I could name.
