Page 44 - NyghtVision Boot Camp One Fill Edition

7.Interpolation

Changing the way we THINK we see the world.

An optical illusion can be the result of one of two phenomena - a limitation of the
human eye or a consequence of how we have been told we must see the world. The
first can’t be changed. The second can.

We take a lot of things for granted. Take something as simply as a
red apple. We assume that everyone who looks at the apple sees its
redness the same way. In fact, we don’t know that to be true. We
know only that we have been told that the apple is red. For someone
who is color blind, the apple isn’t red at all. It is gray.
Learning to see the world again
This carries over into our photography as well. We have been told for the first time
that the sky is blue so when we are out working on a bright, sunny,
summer day, we fail to see that the sky is actually not blue at all. guage, experience, education
Until, of course we return to the studio to look at the images on our and cultural expectation, our
computer. Then we see what we were unable to see at the moment. brain “corrects” what we see
Our brains “fill in the blanks” for us - correcting all manner of ex- as fast as we see it.
perience. We call this phenomenon “interpolation.” Aided by lan-

44 Boot Camp, Part 1