Visualization (aka Postprevisualization?)
Forgive me for airing out a minor pet peeve but I have always been somewhat of a stickler for proper terminology. It’s not clear who came up with the nonsensical term “previsualization” or who was the first to make the mistake of attributing it to Ansel Adams but the term became so established that it seems to roll off the tongues of many otherwise serious and knowledgeable photographers and photographic scholars.
To find the correct term, all one has to do is look at page 1 of chapter 1 of book 1 (“The Camera”) in Ansel Adams’ famous trilogy. The chapter is titled “Visualization” and in its first paragraph is defined as “…the ability to anticipate a finished image before making the exposure”.
So, if Visualization describes the ability to see the finished image in the proverbial “mind’s eye,” then Previsualization is pretty much anything that happens before that. In other words, if at any point in the future you plan to Visualize, then the act of brushing your teeth in the morning qualifies as previsualization. It’s easy to see that such a term is pretty meaningless.
Category: Rants and Raves
Yep. It is pretty meaningless. I’ve always disliked that word nearly as much these other two: irregardless (ugh!) and near-miss!
I can sort of agree with you but there are precedents. If a murder is premeditated, it means you though about doing it before you did it.. so previsualisation could mean thinking about it before you do it (however, I would prefer that premeditated murder becomes meditated murder – or even better planned murder).
Bill and I often joke about this. One thing to keep in mind though, is that post-rationalization is often more important than “pre-visualization”!
I’ve often seen this attributed to Edward Weston as well as Adams. Minor White used the word a lot in reference to the zone system. The word is not so redundant if you think of it as a variation of the word ‘prevision’ rather than ‘visualize.’ Prevision means the faculty of foreseeing or insight into the future; it’s in the OED with references going back to the 17th century.
Every day I have posthaste previsualizations of whirled peas in my minds eye. Good thing it has no cornea to scratch.
Kinda like proactive….. isn’t that just being active?
Somebody is cranky!
Laurent, I prefer “opinionated”
Guy
[...] Dan who are willing to share what they’ve learned. It helps greatly with the visualization (but not pre-visualization!) of compositions in my mind’s [...]
What I find funny is that I think of the term “previsualization” more with cinematography than photography. In cinematography, it primarily refers to creating a computer model of the scene (including camera movements) to get a sense of how the final movie will look.
I have mostly heard visualization with regards to photography (from your Adams reference). Perhaps the use is coming more from the movie industry term leaking into the photography world?
Hey Guy
“Previsualization” I nap.
Cheers
Carl