Right Brain vs Left Brain

[sk66]

I was doing a bit of research into this as related to photography. I am Right handed and left brain in most aspects...The left brain being the analytical/technical side. But I am left eye dominant.

I had thought my left eye was controlled by the right brain, the artistic/visual/creative side. But this is not the case.

It turns out that the left HALF of each eye goes to the right brain, and the right half goes to the left brain. It doesn't matter "which brained" you are, things on the left side of what you view are processed by the "creative/visual/artistic" side first.

Now consider this fact with the preference to "read" images from left to right or in a clockwise pattern...... very interesting.

[inkista]

Cultural bias. If you read Hebrew or Arabic you go the other direction, and if you're Chinese/Japanes, you actually go top to bottom, then left to right (as every manga reader knows).

Actually, where the right brain/left brain thing gets me is in view/technical camera work. If you've ever read Betty Edwards's Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, you know that one of the earliest exercises she gives to flip you into "right brain mode" is to copy an image while it's upside down. This disengages the seeing of "symbols" and lets you see pure spatial/shapes.

View cameras, because of the way lenses work, invert the image top to bottom AND left to right. So you're seeing a mirror image upside down on the ground glass. Ansel Adams used a view camera almost exclusively, and I saw a short film that had a clip of him in the dark room, and what struck me was that he also put the negative on the enlarger so it was similarly inverted when he was printed. I.e., he printed upside-down. Said it helped him compose more easily.

Right brain.

I remember when the early Canon P&S cameras with flip-out LCDs came out, you can actually get the image to be upside down on the LCD, and I lamented that I didn't have one that did that, so I could try it for landscape photography. I really wish they'd let you tell the LCD to give you the image upside down if you want, but of course, nobody thinks this would be a useful feature. (sigh). And, now, of course, all the flip-out LCDs self-correct and don't do that any more.

[sk66]

Do you know if there is a cultural directional bias when viewing images though? Everything I've heard/read says not, but I can't say I've ever found anything definitive about it.

I think the "inverted" aspect allows one to break "preconception". It would be interesting to play with for artistic shots; not sure how it would work with portraits and the like.

[RLucas]

Originally Posted by inkista

Cultural bias. If you read Hebrew or Arabic you go the other direction, and if you're Chinese/Japanes, you actually go top to bottom, then left to right (as every manga reader knows).

Actually, where the right brain/left brain thing gets me is in view/technical camera work. If you've ever read Betty Edwards's Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, you know that one of the earliest exercises she gives to flip you into "right brain mode" is to copy an image while it's upside down. This disengages the seeing of "symbols" and lets you see pure spatial/shapes.

View cameras, because of the way lenses work, invert the image top to bottom AND left to right. So you're seeing a mirror image upside down on the ground glass. Ansel Adams used a view camera almost exclusively, and I saw a short film that had a clip of him in the dark room, and what struck me was that he also put the negative on the enlarger so it was similarly inverted when he was printed. I.e., he printed upside-down. Said it helped him compose more easily.

Right brain.

I remember when the early Canon P&S cameras with flip-out LCDs came out, you can actually get the image to be upside down on the LCD, and I lamented that I didn't have one that did that, so I could try it for landscape photography. I really wish they'd let you tell the LCD to give you the image upside down if you want, but of course, nobody thinks this would be a useful feature. (sigh). And, now, of course, all the flip-out LCDs self-correct and don't do that any more.

I happen to own that book. It's really good btw. One of my art teachers used to make me draw everything upside down as well. It was amazing how much better the proportions worked out when done that way. She also had me draw things for months without looking at what I was doing. I could only look at my subject and nothing more. Not sure if it helped or not, but it made for interesting stuff!

[Ambrosia76]

I am right handed, pretty even 55/45 left brain/right brain and I use my left eye in the viewfinder.

[ravncat]

I'm a surface brain kinda guy, not so much a deep brain, which is why i'm not a zombie.

[nickbedford]

I don't know what I am. I use both "sides" of my brain in probably equal proportions.

I'm a programmer which is literally logic in text form, have a usable knowledge of mathematics, love physics, and I'm endlessly fascinated with knowing about most things.

But then, I'm a photographer, I love film, I love creating things. I almost have a film director's approach to seeing my photographs. I used to draw in school and still love drawing, though I rarely do it these days. I used to do 3D modelling during high school and uni. I especially love creative portraits in photography. I'm a drummer in a band and have created artwork for the band myself.

[NgaiHill]

I am right-handed, right eye dominant but am more logical/technical than artistic.

Whenever I am issuing weapons from the armoury I have this one problem.
The soldier brings his weapon out, reads me out the serial number, I write it down, look up to identify said soldier, write his name down & then he signs the register. I write the serial number no problem but when I look up, although I can recognise the soldier I have a real hard time thinking of his name, even guys I've known for years. Luckily most of them have name tags on so its not so bad, I can just read that.
I always thought it was just me (getting old) until one of the younger guys was having the same problem. He said it was because your brain is trying to process hearing & writing numbers and then doing facial recognition - which is using a different part of the brain.
So now I know WHY I have a hard time thinking of the guy's name when I look at his face but it still doesn't help actually accomplish the recognition any better!

[graciousness]

I'm a no brainer

Is that an option?

[alexandjoyc14]

This is my first post here. When at Polaroid, I took a seminar with Betty Edwards, Polaroid wanted their engineers to view things differently. It actually worked, at least with me. I still routinely rotate images, look at them in B&W, etc. The results are some interesting abstracts and sans color, can give a much different mood to an image.