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Throughout my life, I have seen some of the most interesting things through a camera. It may seem odd that some of my most interesting experiences have been through an artificial lens, but a camera is in the same family of both the magnifying glass and the microscope. It is not only the ability to see things in more detail that demands our attention; it is something else, something about the art of photography that forces us to examine the world as we don't normally do. Normally we don't see things as they are. Have you ever found something unusual about something familiar that seems very out of place? For instance, if you find some mole or freckle on your body that you never noticed before, do you wonder if it was always there? How could I never see it? You may say to yourself. I look at my arm (hand, foot) every day. Here your assumptions have been challenged. The arm is no longer the arm that we imagined in our head, and it becomes disturbing. Our lives have become predictable in the sense that we see symbols instead of images, and only upon close examination do we find discrepancies between the two.

Walker Percy calls this the problem of symbolic complexes. In his essay "The Loss of the Creature," he describes the loss of such grand monuments as the Grand Canyon to these complexes. He states that a tourist can never really "see" the Grand Canyon as it really is, because his or her vision will be tainted by pre-expectation; they already formed an idea in their heads, thanks to postcards and sightseers' manuals that they have seen before the confrontation (Percy 588). Here Percy agues against Bronowski idea in "Knowledge or Certainty" that we need to have knowledge of what we're about to examine before we examine it (Bronowski 358). Percy claims that instead of coming upon this great thing and admiring it for what it is, sightseers come upon it and compare it to their already formulated expectations. Percy claims that the situation is worsen when the tourist has a camera. In this situation, the tourist comes upon the thing to behold, takes a photograph, and leaves without ever really seeing the thing. He or she "waives [his or her] right of seeing and knowing," as Percy puts it, "and records symbols for the next forty years"(Percy 589).

I was victim to a very similar situation when I visited Snoqualmie Falls with my father eight years ago. I remembered being very bored on the trip. I thought the waterfall was interesting at first, but soon I lost that interest. Sure, I told my friends and family later how wonderful it was, how it was "better than the pictures." But truthfully I couldn't have cared less about it. To be honest, bragging about it was more interesting than seeing the waterfall itself. I am sure everybody has the similar experience as I did: the marvelous thing you did that did not really live up to expectations at the time but that everybody knows is wonderful, so you say how great it was later. The thing that interests me now, however, is not my boredom, but my father's continued fascination with our surroundings that day.

He had recently bought his first camera. I remembered being dragged from store to store and watching him as he as he scattered through each store to find the best deal. I even remembered the look on the man's face who sold him the camera. He seemed as bored as I did when my dad asked him to describe the features of different cameras. I think that perhaps it was more his job the man was bored with, though.

I hated the camera. On the trip, it never left his face, as if it was attach to his head. However, that was not what was frustrating. What upset me most was how his actions had changed with this new tool. Constantly, I struggled to get his attention; his focus was on the viewfinder. He would stare at rocks, babble about light patterns and colors, hike to out-of the-way places in order to take a picture. On one hike along edge of the waterfall, he leaned precariously over a 200-foot drop in an attempt to capture the greatness of the water down below. While I and every other sane person kept our safe distance, he stood still for minutes, apparently waiting for something to happen. I remembered wandering off to leave him with his photographic moment.

It was not just because I was young and had a short attention span that my experience was less enjoyable than my father's that summer. Instead, it was the fact that we both saw different things that trip; through that camera, he seemed to see things that others did not. Sure, we were both in front of the same landscape, and both had the same opportunity to see what was there. But not everybody sees things as they are. This is the same idea the Bronowski mentions.

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