Perception and Imaging, Second Edition [Paperback]

Richard D. Zakia (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 024080466X | ISBN-13: 978-0240804668 | Publication Date: January 2, 2002 | Edition: 2

Taking photographs has become easier over the years, but taking photographs that have impact and lasting power has not. Such images require heart, and some understanding of the factors that make an image noteworthy. Perception and Imaging, Second Edition will lead you into areas and concepts that will spark your intellectual curiosity and assist you in your image making. What is known about vision and the visual process is overwhelming; what is directly applicable to pictures is not. Perception and Imaging, Second Edition is the visual artist's gateway to the principles that drive visual perception.

Perception and Imaging, Second Edition invites you to explore the domain of the subconscious and collective unconscious, and the role subliminals, secondary images, and archetypes play; the role of memory and association, and why ambiguity and illusion are an important components;
why soft and hard contours (edges) are critical to sharpness, contrast, color, and depth perception; and how visual rhetoric has been used to give impact to photographs, advertisements, posters, promotional material, and motion pictures. Perception and Imaging, Second Edition is for anyone and everyone involved with visual images and has a desire to better understand them.


Many examples of metaphor, metonymy, paradox, pun, homology, hyperbole, ellipses, inversion chiasmus, allusion, and other rhetorical devices.
A new enlarged section on color, with 15 new color images presenting color measurement and notation, color connotations, color illusions, color constancy, color synesthesia, metamerism, and defective color vision.
The chapter on Critique has been expanded to include the use of Group Dynamics. Photographs are polysemantic, possessing layered meanings.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Clear, thought-provoking, applicable to all visual communications."

"An excellent and most useful text. It gives a comprehensive introduction to how the eye and human visual system respond to imagery in art and design." - Professor L Macdonald, London College of Communication

From the Publisher

Perception and Imaging, Second Edition invites you to explore the domain of the subconscious and collective unconscious, and the role subliminals, secondary images, and archetypes play; the role of memory and association, and why ambiguity and illusion are important components; why soft and hard contours (edges) are critical to sharpness, contrast, color, and depth perception; and how visual rhetoric has been used to give impact to photographs, advertisements, posters, promotional material, and motion pictures. Perception and Imaging, Second Edition is for anyone and everyone involved with visual images and has a desire to better understand them.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Focal Press; 2 edition (January 2, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 024080466X
• ISBN-13: 978-0240804668
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #473,177 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Richard Zakia is a 1956 graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Some of his classmates at the time were Carl Chiarenza, Peter Bunnell, Bruce Davidson, Ken Josephson, Pete Turner and Jerry Uelsmann. Minor White was a member of the faculty and Beaumont Newhall was Adjunct. It was a great and enriching mix. After graduation he was employed as a photographic engineer in the Color Technology Division of Eastman Kodak. During the Sputnik era he decided teaching was his vocation and accepted a position with RIT where he served for 34 years. For a time he was Director of Instructional Research and Development and Chair of the Fine Art Photography Department and graduate program in Imaging Arts. He is a recipient of the Eisenhart Outstanding Teaching Award. Zakia has authored and co-authored thirteen books on photography and perception. He is also the co-editor with Dr. Leslie Stroebel of the third edition (1993) of The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography and a contributor to the fourth edition (2007). His most recent book is Teaching Photography with Dr. Glen Rand.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing Else Like It, January 16, 2002

By 

Bruce Appelbaum (Yorktown Heights, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Perception and Imaging, Second Edition (Paperback)

This is the second edition of Perception and Imaging, but is also the latest in a string of precursors that included the small-press "Perception and Photography" from the late 1970s.

This current edition adds almost 100 pages to the last. It explains why and how we see what we see. More, it provides the basis for the visual artist to take advantage and use that knowledge to make better images.

The printing is much better than the previous edition (thankfully) and the higher quality paper does away with the separate illustration section that the first edition required. The quotes from imagemakers in the margins (taken from two out of print Zakia works that should be back in print) are a valuable addition to the main text that helps provide a context for the material.

If you want to understand the psychology of visual images and visual messages, this is a unique book.

35 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Beyond Photography and Beyond Me!, May 27, 2003

By 

Conrad J. Obregon (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Perception and Imaging, Second Edition (Paperback)

Most photography instruction books talk about equipment and subjects. Seldom is there a discussion of the psychological and physiological aspects of the photographer and the viewer in the process of creating and looking at pictures. This book attempts to fill that gap for photographers and other graphic artists with the aim of giving more impact to pictures created by those artists.

The contents are wide ranging, with everything from a discussion of Gestalt psychology field grouping to a discussion of the meaning of the "Kilroy was here" signs that proliferated during and after the Second World War.

Some of the material may be immediately useful to a photographer such as the discussion of figure and ground. Thinking in these terms may make it easier for the photographer to decide how, or even if, he wants to provide separation to his subject.

Other material will require a major mental engagement that could ultimately prove useful. For example there is a lengthy discussion of the use of rhetoric in photography. This will be a new concept for most photographers. Zakia suggests that rhetoric deals with structuring the photograph to alter its message in a certain direction. For example, the photographer can use the rhetorical device of identity to strengthen a picture through repetition. That device should be easily understandable to most photographers. On the other hand using dubitation for opposition (sic!) may leave the photographer wondering what the author is talking about. However, a close reading might reveal that considering this approach may lead to a stronger picture.

Finally there is material like the discussion of synesthesia, a situation where one experiences a sensual stimulus, like a sound, in another mode, like vision. While interesting, I failed to see the relevance of this information to the practical photographer.

And that is a major shortcoming of this book. The author frequently fails to make a connection between a phenomenon that he is describing and photography. To compound this shortcoming, when he offers a connection to a visual work as an illustration, he does not usually include the work in the book, but rather describes it in writing. For a book on imaging, the failure to include images is shocking.

I suppose there are photographers who are so skilled and so intellectual that they could benefit from this material. The rest of us can probably find other guides to better our photography.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learn more about Visual Literacy., July 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Perception and Imaging (Paperback)

This book is a nuts and bolts primer on how human beings make sense of the world they see. Anyone interested in learning more about visual literacy and the way pictures convey their messages would benefit by reading this book.