The professor crossed into another world today by bringing forth Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem.  The theorem is actually 2 parts – the first states that no mathematical system can prove every truth about itself while the second states any system that can prove itself using its own logic will contain contradictory statements within that system.  It is this first part of the theorem that holds the interesting application to photography (and, perhaps, art in general).

The process of photography is not complete without the photographer.  The mind and eye of the photographer shape the image that appears in the viewfinder.  The shutter is releases and the scene records, yet there is a piece missing from the frame.  That piece is the photographer.  It is assumed the photographer is there, but it cannot be proven.  In order to prove the photographer, another image (system) must be created in order to prove the photographer’s truth.  Of course, this creates a problem because a new system would need to be created in order to prove the complete truth of the preceding image.  The photographer cannot validate himself within the image he creates.

Proving everything requires infinity.

Let’s put it another way.  The frame provides the boundary in which the image (system) exists.  What falls outside the frame is still part of the image.  This is so because the photographer (who is part of the image as the creator) made the decision of whether to include it or not in the scene.  The system given cannot prove the elements outside the frame. Proving the elements requires a new image (system) to be created.  But then some of the elements of the original image cannot be proven (they are part of the new image) as well as those elements, not related to the original image, that were left out of the new image, as they were consciously left out by the photographer.

This application to photography is fascinating.  Perhaps, on some unconscious level, we know the above is true, and we (collectively) attempt to record as much as possible through a camera.  This is definitely going to require some more thought.

Here is a photograph I took at Rice University a couple weeks ago that demonstrates what I discussed.  I chose to exclude the buildings of the Texas Medical Center, which would appear on the right edge of the frame, in this panoramic image of the student quad at Rice University.  They are part of the image because of this exclusion, just as I, the camera operator, am part of the image as its creator.

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