Science for the Curious Photographer, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 19What We See and How We Photograph It

 

 

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

—ALBERT EINSTEIN

 

 

 

There is no reality—get over it. I don’t mean that the real world doesn’t exist with all its objects, scattered and absorbed radiation, etc., but rather that we only “see” a very small part of what is in front of us, and that part is heavily filtered, selectively enhanced, interpreted, and corrected. In short, we experience a colorized illusion or, better, a simulation of the world that is “visible” from our perspective. And that simulation is about 100 milliseconds out of date by the time we consciously experience it, except for selective parts that have been extrapolated in time by the mind to predict ...