S H Bean ~ Photographer

The ‘Optical Window’

By S H Bean on June 11, 2014

The ‘Optical Window’

The ‘optical window’ of profane vision creates real world problems for Photography (also for Art in general) and for most of the time the general public are not aware of them. What is the correct brightness of the scene in front of me, is that the right colour? It is this invisible world that I am interested in. How can we accurately see using our eyes?
Our vision is very limited, we only see a minute part of the world in which we live in and that through the limitations of an optical window. This window is designed to help us make visual sense of the world. It helps brain to see the world as visually stable, even though the sensory (visual) information is typically rapidly changing. A sheet of white paper will, within reason, eventually look white under any lighting conditions.
As a Photographer when I perceive an object (rather than using profane vision) I understand there is no guarantee of visual consistency or permanence but rather an infinite number of visual possibilities.