Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology profoundly informs Vernon Chalmers’ Conscious Intelligence Photography Theory.
This essay provides a comprehensive examination of the influence of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology on Vernon Chalmers’ Conscious Intelligence (CI) Photography Theory. It argues that Chalmers’ conceptual photography framework is deeply informed by Merleau-Ponty’s accounts of embodiment, perception, intersubjectivity, and lived experience. Across long-form philosophical engagement, applied photographic praxis, and contemplative attentiveness to nature, CI Photography extends Merleau-Ponty’s insights into a contemporary methodology for understanding photographic creativity. The essay synthesizes phenomenological philosophy, cognitive awareness, perceptual psychology, and photographic practice to show how Chalmers’ view of the photographer’s consciousness - always embodied, perceptually situated, and co-emergent with the world - resonates strongly with Merleau-Ponty’s model of perception as a dynamic, participatory, and pre-reflective event. The result is a detailed account of how CI Photography operationalizes phenomenology into a lived creative discipline.
Vernon Chalmers Conscious Intelligence Theory IndexThe relationship between philosophical phenomenology and contemporary photographic theory is increasingly foregrounded as photographers and theorists seek frameworks that account for the lived, embodied, and intentional dimensions of visual creation. Among the philosophical traditions that have shaped recent thinking, the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty stands out for its rigorous analysis of perception, embodiment, and the intertwining of consciousness with the world. Vernon Chalmers’ Conscious Intelligence (CI) Photography Theory - an integration of mindful awareness, perceptual attunement, experiential learning, and creative intentionality - draws significantly from these foundations. Although Chalmers’ framework is distinctively his own, combining elements of cognitive phenomenology, experiential education, and natural observation, Merleau-Ponty’s influence pervades the philosophical architecture of CI Photography.
This essay provides a detailed exposition of how Merleau-Ponty’s concepts inform Chalmers’ approach. It examines four principal areas of influence: (1) embodied perception as the basis of photographic seeing, (2) perception as an active, meaning-forming process, (3) the intertwining of subject and world, and (4) the phenomenology of presence in natural environments. Through these dimensions, the essay situates CI Photography as an applied phenomenological practice in which the photographer enters a relational field with the natural world and engages perception as a conscious–intelligent act.
Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenological FoundationsTo understand how Merleau-Ponty informs Chalmers, it is necessary to briefly outline the philosophical foundations relevant to photographic practice. Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology emphasizes that perception is not a passive reception of stimuli but a dynamic interplay between body, consciousness, and world (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2012). Rejecting Cartesian dualism, he posits the body as the primary site of knowing - the locus of intentionality and the medium of perceptual experience. For Merleau-Ponty, the world is not an external object but a lived field in which one is always already situated.
Central to his thought are the concepts of:
- Embodiment (the lived body): The body is not an object among objects but the active, intentional structure through which one perceives (Carman, 2008).
- Pre-reflective intentionality: Consciousness is directed toward the world before conceptual analysis or linguistic mediation.
- The intertwining (chiasm): The perceiver and the world are mutually constitutive, forming a relational unity (Merleau-Ponty, 1968).
- Perceptual openness: Vision is a “communion” with the world in which meaning arises through engagement rather than representation.
These concepts are structurally embedded in CI Photography, which positions the photographer as a conscious, embodied agent engaged in perceptual co-creation with the natural world.
Embodied Perception as the Basis of CI PhotographyChalmers’ CI framework emphasizes that photography begins not with the camera but with the embodied perceptual experience of the photographer. This view resonates fundamentally with Merleau-Ponty’s assertion that perception is grounded in the lived body. For Merleau-Ponty, vision is not an abstract cognitive function but an activity of the whole being, incorporating movement, orientation, kinesthetic awareness, and environmental attunement. Chalmers applies this insight by framing photography as an embodied encounter in which the photographer’s physical presence, posture, breath, movement, and kinesthetic awareness directly influence perceptual clarity and creative decision-making.
In Chalmers’ view, Conscious Intelligence emerges when cognitive awareness, perceptual sensitivity, and embodied presence are integrated in the moment of photographic engagement. This framework aligns with the Merleau-Pontian claim that “to perceive is to inhabit” (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2012, p. 53). In CI Photography, inhabiting the photographic moment means:
- attuning to environmental cues,
- orienting one’s body in relation to movement,
- developing sensitivity to depth, rhythm, and flow,
- and experiencing perception as an unfolding event rather than a detached observation.
Chalmers emphasizes this particularly in genres like Birds in Flight (BIF) photography, where perception must anticipate movement. This anticipatory perceptual intentionality mirrors Merleau-Ponty’s discussions of motor intentionality - perception informed by bodily expectation and action readiness (Sheets-Johnstone, 1999). Thus, CI Photography operationalizes Merleau-Ponty’s embodied perception by making it a core methodological principle.
Perception as Active Meaning-MakingAnother domain where Merleau-Ponty’s influence is evident is Chalmers’ view of perception as an active, meaning-forming process. Merleau-Ponty argues that perception is inherently interpretive; through perceptual engagement, the world acquires structure, significance, and depth. This view rejects objectivist accounts of photography that treat the camera as a neutral recorder of external reality. Instead, it supports Chalmers’ assertion that photographic seeing is an act of conscious intelligence in which meaning arises through experiential engagement.
Chalmers’ CI Theory frames photographic perception as a dynamic interplay among:
- attentional focus,
- perceptual differentiation,
- contextual awareness,
- emotional resonance,
- and cognitive appraisal.
In Merleau-Ponty’s terms, this constitutes a synthesis of pre-reflective and reflective intentionality: the photographer first perceives intuitively and bodily, then selectively interprets and composes. CI Photography stresses that meaningful images arise not from the mechanics of the camera but from the photographer’s perceptual intentionality - how they direct awareness and how they allow meaning to emerge at the junction of perception and conscious interpretation.
This reflects Merleau-Ponty’s claim that “the perceived world is the always presupposed foundation of all rationality, all value, and all existence” (1945/2012, p. xv). Chalmers extends this by suggesting that photographic creativity is an extension of this perceptual foundation, where meaning becomes visually articulated.
The Intertwining of Photographer and WorldOne of Merleau-Ponty’s most influential contributions is the concept of the chiasm, the intertwining of perceiver and perceived. This expresses the idea that perception is reciprocal: the world “looks back,” shaping the perceiver as much as it is shaped by perception. Chalmers’ CI Photography aligns strongly with this ontology. CI frames photographic engagement as relational rather than extractive - an encounter in which the photographer and the environment co-create the perceptual moment.
In natural-world photography, particularly in Chalmers’ work, this manifests as:
- entering a state of reciprocal attention,
- acknowledging the agency or presence of natural subjects,
- allowing the environment to influence pacing and perceptual rhythm,
- and engaging in what Chalmers describes as conscious–attuned seeing.
This resonates with Merleau-Ponty’s notion of “reversibility,” where the seer is also seen, the toucher touched, and perception becomes a mutual exchange (Merleau-Ponty, 1968). In CI Photography, the photographer is not an external observer imposing visual order but a participant within the perceptual field. This relational field is the locus of Conscious Intelligence: it is where the photographer’s awareness, the environment’s presence, and the unfolding perceptual dynamics converge.
This perspective is especially evident in Chalmers’ descriptions of working in natural environments such as wetlands or coastal regions, where the photographer must integrate shifting light, atmospheric conditions, bird behaviour, and environmental textures into a unified perceptual field. The intertwining of photographer and world becomes a precondition for meaningful photographic expression.
Presence, Temporality, and the Phenomenology of Natural EnvironmentsChalmers consistently emphasizes presence as a core principle of CI Photography. Presence, in this context, denotes a state of intentional immersion in the perceptual field - a suspension of distraction, conceptual abstraction, and technological preoccupation. This notion aligns directly with Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of temporality, where the present moment is not a static point but a lived horizon that integrates past experience, immediate awareness, and future anticipation.
In CI Photography, presence is understood as:
- fully inhabiting perceptual experience,
- being attuned to environmental rhythms,
- engaging with the flow of time rather than resisting it,
- and allowing the photographic moment to arise organically.
Merleau-Ponty (1945/2012) describes this as the “lived present,” a temporal field structured by retention and protention—memory traces and anticipatory awareness. Chalmers applies this to photographic practice by suggesting that perceptual mastery arises when the photographer integrates past experiential learning, present sensory immersion, and anticipation of movement and change.
This temporal awareness is critical in genres that depend on fluidity and motion - such as BIF, long exposure landscapes, or dynamic natural scenes. CI Photography treats temporality not as a technical parameter of shutter speed but as a phenomenological dimension of the photographic encounter.
CI Photography as Applied PhenomenologyIn synthesizing these philosophical influences, CI Photography can be understood as a contemporary, applied form of Merleau-Pontian phenomenology within photographic practice. The alignment becomes clear across several structural correspondences:
- Embodied perception: Both frameworks reject disembodied seeing and foreground the role of the body in awareness.
- Perception as meaning: Both assert that meaning arises through perceptual engagement, not through analytical abstraction or mechanical optics.
- Relational ontology: Both see perception as an intertwining between self and world rather than separation.
- Lived experience: Both prioritize the richness of lived, pre-reflective experience.
Chalmers translates these philosophical insights into practical methodologies for photographers. Through Conscious Intelligence, he emphasizes experiential training, environmental sensitivity, and perceptual self-awareness as the foundation of photographic learning and creativity. This positions CI Photography not simply as a philosophical theory but as a lived discipline - a way of perceiving, engaging, and creating that is rooted in phenomenological insight.
The Contribution of CI Photography to Contemporary Photographic TheoryChalmers’ phenomenologically grounded approach offers several contributions to the broader landscape of photographic theory.
A Rejection of Purely Technical or Representational Models
By foregrounding embodied perception and Conscious Intelligence, CI Photography challenges photographic paradigms that overly emphasize technical mastery, equipment, or representational accuracy. In this respect, Chalmers extends Merleau-Ponty’s critique of scientific objectivism into a critique of purely technical photographic thinking.
A Framework for Experiential Photographic Learning
Chalmers integrates phenomenology with experiential education principles, creating a model of photographic learning based on sensory immersion, reflective practice, and perceptual skill development. This reinforces Merleau-Ponty’s emphasis on the primacy of lived experience as a mode of knowing.
A Philosophical Model for Nature Photography
CI Photography offers a robust theoretical foundation for environmentally engaged photography. By treating natural subjects as participants in a perceptual relationship, Chalmers aligns with ecological and phenomenological perspectives that view the natural world not as a passive object but as a relational field.
Contribution to Consciousness Studies in Art
Finally, CI Photography contributes to the dialogue between phenomenology, consciousness studies, and creative practice. It articulates a model of visual creativity grounded in conscious awareness and embodied perception - concepts increasingly relevant in an era of AI imaging and computational photography.
Conclusion
Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology profoundly informs Vernon Chalmers’ Conscious Intelligence Photography Theory. Through the integration of embodied perception, active meaning-making, relational ontology, and temporal presence, CI Photography emerges as an applied phenomenological practice rooted in lived experience. Chalmers extends Merleau-Ponty’s insights into a detailed framework for photographic creativity that places the photographer’s embodied consciousness at the centre of the photographic encounter.
ReferencesIn doing so, CI Photography offers not only a philosophical account of visual creation but also a practical methodology for photographers seeking deeper perceptual engagement with the natural world. The influence of Merleau-Ponty is evident not merely as an intellectual reference but as an experiential foundation embedded in the very structure of CI Photography.
Carman, T. (2008). Merleau-Ponty. Routledge.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968). The visible and the invisible (C. Lefort, Ed.; A. Lingis, Trans.). Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (2012). Phenomenology of perception (D. A. Landes, Trans.). Routledge. (Original work published 1945)
Sheets-Johnstone, M. (1999). The primacy of movement. John Benjamins.
