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The Fortean Frozen Photographer Phenomenon

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evilsprout

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The latest issue of FT, with its Orang Pendek feature, got me thinking [FT182]. In it Debbie Martyr, the journalist turned environmentalist who's stalking the mysterious man-ape Orang Pendek, described her sightings of the beast. (my italics)

I was concentrating so hard on avoiding my guide it didn't look towards me. I had a camera in my hand and dropped it, I was so shocked. It was something so new my synapses froze up for a minute trying to identify something I hadn't seen before
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and later...

Again, it was on Mount Tuju and, again I had a camera in my hand but I froze, because I didn't know what I was seeing
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Now isn't this a really common motif in Fortean stories? Someone with a perfectly good camera is faced with an unexplained phenomena and they're unable to take a photo?

I can think of a couple of reasons:

1. The shock is so much they just don't think rationally and it's gone before they have chance to come round from that (as Martyr herself says in the above passage).

2. They're seeing something that isn't there, and somehow their subconscious knows this and that there's no point in taking a picture.

3. They're subconsious thinks it can't be there even if it is, and therefore won't let the body waste time taking a picture!

4. Everyone's lying!

I'm not a psychologist, so has anyone got any ideas? Or any other examples of this phenomenon off the top of their heads?
 
Evilsprout: I have nothing to add but I wanted to say great idea for atopic - I was pondering the same question after reading that article. I must admit I had gone for the too suprised to think about taking a snap but in one of those instances in that article she was waiitng for it so she could take a picture so I was leaning towards some kind of back peddalling (either if they were lying or mistaken or didn't get such a good view or......) or some kind of 'paranormal shock' something so alien that the fight or flight reponse gets subsumed under a kind of blank, slack jawed kind of state. The latter might suggest that things aren't completely natural esp. in this case when a naturalist looking for a new species would be trying their damndest to get a snap.

Emps
 
Simple :)p) cogintive dissonance. Their brains just can't assimlate the sensory input they're recieving. In a more severe instance, they probably wouldn't even see it. Or not realize that it was something unusual at all.

Of course, there could always be an external mechanism that's triggering this. Actintic (?) rays given off from the object's higher dimensional vibrational frequency or whatnot.
 
As a photographer, I know that feeling of being faced by something amazing and yet not being able to take a picture.

It's a classic photographer nightmare. For me, literally. I've often dreamed similar situations. All that you know goes out of your head and you become impotent. Well it can happen. The situation becomes bigger than trying to make an image.

Thing about photographing when faced by something amazing - you have to have your wits about you. Literally. You need to have a totally clear mind. You need to be able to switch into a sort of machine mode - you need to be so used to switching into that mode. You need to be able to switch into taking pictures which you have basically taken previously in a different situation. You need to be able to call up strategties which you have used before. There are so many factors - technical and compositional eg. It can be confusing.

IMO - it is very hard to take pictures when you are a part of what is going on. And it can be very difficult to remain a third party. Especially if your head starts asking you to try to be objective.

When you make a photograph which works (IMO) - you kind of see the image in advance - when everything is working. You can shoot hundreds of frames - but you already know as you are shooting which ones have really worked.

I worked for a guy in France in the early 1990s who is a world renowned journalistic photographer. Typically he got one 'good' frame out of, say, every 2 rolls of 35mm he shot. So 1 shot per 72 frames. I remember going through his work after he had been abroad shooting the old URRS for the National Geographical. He had shot over 200 rolls in under a week. From which we chose less than 10 images. And he holds the Legion D'Honneur for his contribution to the arts and society.

And I've known other top photographers of, say, the Vietnam War era, who would say that 1 frame per 2 rolls is wildly optimistic.
 
Back in October I was out in the back garden with my brother, who was visiting, when I looked over, above the houses to the left of me.

I saw two passenger jets about 500 ft up, coming in opposite directions towards each other and there couldn't have been more than 200ft of clearance between them.

It seemed like seconds before one of them took evasive action and swung off at an angle to avoid the other.

Now, I had a digital camera in my pocket, but there was no way I could have got it out, switched on and pointed in the right direction to have taken a photo.

It all happened so fast that my brother hardly noticed anything and afterwards I wasn't even sure if I hadn't imagined the whole thing.

Frozen? Definitely. We used to live near a major airport when I was a kid, but I've never seen anything like that before, except at air displays (done on purpose), or on the TV.
 
I can well understand the inability to get a snap of something that has suddenly and unexpectedly occurred, but if you take Evilsprout's example, the photographer presumably set out deliberately to take a photo of this creature, to deliberately prove its existence, and therefore would in some way be mentally prepared. So, for example, Androman's case would come under (1), but if I set out to catch a picture of a Yeti, had a camera in my hand ready to do it, had some idea of what it looked like so would be prepared, and had it sat yards away eating breakfast, my inability to photo it, not once, but twice might lead me to rather unkindly suggest explanation 4 :D
 
This is more of the bit being quoted:

I knew there was something in the vicinity, because of the action of the birds and primates in the area meant that there was obviously something moving around. So I sent a guide around as faar as I could to wher the distrubance was. Whatever was concelaed in the undergrowth would try to aviod my guide and move away in front of him. I was concelaed looking down over a small valley. We didn't know what we were going to see, it could have been a bear, it could have been a tiger, it could have been a golden cat, or anything.. Instead a bipedal, non-human primate walked down the path ahead. It was concentrating so hard on avoiding my guide it didn't look towards me. I had a camera in my hand and dropped it, I was so shocked. It was something so new my synapses froze up for a minute trying to identify something I hadn't seen before.
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So she wasn't expecting to see whatever she saw and hand't planned on stumbling across this (although it was nice of her to send the guide around if it could have been a bear or anything) so it was a complete suprise.

Emps
 
Understandable, then, but what about the second time? I'd be on a hair-trigger. Any rustle in the undergrowth, I'd be ready. If the guide farted I'd probably take a photo of his arse I'd be so on edge.
 
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