Photography is the visual expression of confirmation bias. We have been alive to confirmation bias for at least two thousand years when Jesus admonished his disciples to deal with the log in their own eye before addressing the speck in their brother’s eye. Jesus adopts figurative speech to talk about a different kind of exchange, but I find it interesting that he uses the eye for his trope. Now, we understand confirmation bias as a cognitive habit that affects us all. We prefer evidence that supports our world view, and we maintain a blind spot when it comes to evidence that contradicts it. This is the log in our eye.
In contemporary public discourse, the phrase “confirmation bias” crops up with predictable regularity, and often accompanied by vitriol. I would like to think that in photography its appearance is more benign, but this wish of mine may reflect a personal confirmation bias. I frame a scene but fail to release the shutter because I see nothing in it of photographic value. I have been taught that, in order to make a good photograph, I need to look for certain features. High contrast through strong shadows, for example. Along with thousands of my colleagues, I pound the pavement, responding only to those scenes which hold precisely the features that confirm my view of what makes a good photograph, repeating the process until I have ground my bias into a cheap cliché. And then, seemingly for the first time, I notice a scene cast in muted tones with subtle gradations from light to dark. I stare at the scene in amazement. It holds for me the force of a revelation.