Is this photograph taken? - The active (act of) collaboration with photography

Over more than thirty years of commercial and fine art photographic practice, I have often noticed remarkable disparities between the scenes, objects, events or moments ‘out there’ I had attempted to record – and the images within the resulting photographs. These (sometimes subtle, sometimes profound, but rarely anticipatable) disparities between what I had seen and what the photograph shows me offer the tantalising suggestion that there may be something else going on here – but something which the popular conception of photography may hinder our ability to recognise. This article explores the implications of four central assumptions implicit within the popular conception of photography which may impede new ways of thinking about photographic practice. Supported by a number of photographs that depict scenes, events and ‘moments’ which were not ‘taken’ but were created by the act of photographing them, I will suggest that new opportunities for practice may be available by ‘re-imagining’ the practice of photography as an active – or, as an act of – collaboration between medium and practitioner

Documenting Fixation at an Extrafoveal Locus with a Modified Slit Lamp in Age-Related Macular Degeneration

PURPOSE. To develop a simple and clinically useful technique for observing fixation at an extrafoveal locus (preferred retinal locus [PRL]) with different targets and texts in age-related macular degeneration (AMD). METHODS. A standard slit lamp was modified by adding several fixation targets in the illumination pathway for direct observation and documentation of fixation during fundus examination. Fixation patterns were analyzed in 30 subjects with AMD. RESULTS. The location and stability of fixation with various stimuli was possible to record in each subject. In 23 subjects, there was no difference between the fixations at star and wagon wheel stimuli; in seven subjects, they were in clearly different retinal locations. Fixation was unstable in three subjects. The PRL for reading words was detectable in all subjects. CONCLUSIONS. The present assessment technique seems to offer a simple, clinically available technique to record fixation patterns to different targets and texts. (Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci