Wayne Jeschke Portfolios

Ever heard the old adage - the camera doesn’t lie…
Well here’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

I’m sure some of you have had the experience of photographing a scene, only to look at it afterwards and find yourself thinking, “this just doesn’t do it justice”, or “doesn’t look the way I remember it”. While this can be do to limitations of our cameras, or our understanding of how to best use them, it may be something else entirely. You see, it’s not so much that the camera does or doesn’t lie, as that it doesn’t see the world in the same way we do. Truth is, the complexities of our eyesight is something we are still learning about, but I will do my best to shed some light, no pun intended, on this fascinating topic. I’ll also admit that as a photographer/artist, I also leave some room for artistic interpretation as well, and don’t necessarily demand that my photographs look exactly like what I originally saw. Not that we can remember that perfectly anyway. But this does not diminish or take away from what I will explain below.

It’s easy to go about our days without really giving much thought to our human vision and how elegant and adaptive it is. In reality, our sight is a combination of our eyes and brain working in concert. You can think of our brain as the software behind our eyes hardware. Having two eyes (unlike the cameras single lens) affords us binocular vision, and with the help of our brain, 3D depth perception. The cameras single lens can only create a 2 dimensional rendering with some visual clues of depth, which our eye/brain can then decipher, helping it to mimic the original scene. In addition our eyes enjoy a distortion free super wide angle field of view, unlike that of virtually any camera. It’s something akin to us standing in front of an IMAX movie screen versus the cameras cropped view on a standard screen. However since our peripheral vision doesn’t have the same resolution and sharpness as the central portion of our vision, we scan around the larger scene to gather detailed images to piece it together. This central area is comparable to a 43mm lens on a digital full frame or 35mm film camera. In essence, it’s almost like having a normal lens and super wide angle lens at the same time, and switching back and forth seamlessly between the two without being consciously aware. It should begin to be apparent why the camera’s record doesn’t always line up with what we remember. But we’re still not done. On top of this we experience our vision more like a video feed than a series of still images, allowing us to comprehend motion. And when it comes to dynamic range - the ability to record information in very bright and dark areas of a scene at once - though the very best digital cameras can compare favourably to our eyes, they have limited ways to display that full range of light, be it on an electronic screen or in print form, without some manipulation of the tones. This actually is one of the most common reasons why many photographs straight out the camera don’t match what we see with our eyes, and why most serious photographers today (including myself) use some form of post camera software to adjust the image. The above photograph was in need of this compensation. But our vision (again seamlessly) does this for us in most situations, by adjusting for different levels of brightness as we scan around the scene. Our brain can also filter out or downplay areas of the scene which we don’t find particularly important or valuable at the time, and that sometimes leads to distracting surprises later when we look at the photograph.

So as you can tell from this brief comparison between the camera and human vision, apart from some basic similarities, they really are quite different from each other. If you’re so inclined to do so, further exploration into the complexities of our eyesight will illustrate the marvel of design it truly is, and to my mind bears witness to its being from the hand of an intelligent designer. Just as we understand that a camera is the result of a designer/maker, it follows that the human body, vastly more complex, and of which the eye is only a part, would be so as well.

As for me, as a photographer/artist I endeavour to understand the limitations as well as leverage the strengths of the creative photographic process, and enjoy trying to embody through print, the beauty of God’s creation.

WJ

Location is Everything

04/06/2024

It's probably fair to say that we live in an age of spectacle today, perhaps greater than any other time in human history.

The Camera Doesn't Lie?

04/01/2023

Ever heard the old adage - the camera doesn’t lie… Well here’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

To Be or Not to Be

07/02/2021

To Be or Not to Be....some thoughts on choosing b&w or colour. Starting out as a landscape photographer I worked exclusively with colour film. I had played around a bit with black and white previously, learning the basics of developing and printing for myself. But ironically, it was while taking a course in Dye Transfer colour printing at the University of Calgary, that my passion for b&w was awakened.

The More Things Change

04/22/2021

I’m sure most of you have heard the expression, “the more things change, the more they stay the same”. Well at the beginning of my photographic journey...

The Camera Doesn't Lie?

4/1/2023

Ever heard the old adage - the camera doesn’t lie…
Well here’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

I’m sure some of you have had the experience of photographing a scene, only to look at it afterwards and find yourself thinking, “this just doesn’t do it justice”, or “doesn’t look the way I remember it”. While this can be do to limitations of our cameras, or our understanding of how to best use them, it may be something else entirely. You see, it’s not so much that the camera does or doesn’t lie, as that it doesn’t see the world in the same way we do. Truth is, the complexities of our eyesight is something we are still learning about, but I will do my best to shed some light, no pun intended, on this fascinating topic. I’ll also admit that as a photographer/artist, I also leave some room for artistic interpretation as well, and don’t necessarily demand that my photographs look exactly like what I originally saw. Not that we can remember that perfectly anyway. But this does not diminish or take away from what I will explain below.

It’s easy to go about our days without really giving much thought to our human vision and how elegant and adaptive it is. In reality, our sight is a combination of our eyes and brain working in concert. You can think of our brain as the software behind our eyes hardware. Having two eyes (unlike the cameras single lens) affords us binocular vision, and with the help of our brain, 3D depth perception. The cameras single lens can only create a 2 dimensional rendering with some visual clues of depth, which our eye/brain can then decipher, helping it to mimic the original scene. In addition our eyes enjoy a distortion free super wide angle field of view, unlike that of virtually any camera. It’s something akin to us standing in front of an IMAX movie screen versus the cameras cropped view on a standard screen. However since our peripheral vision doesn’t have the same resolution and sharpness as the central portion of our vision, we scan around the larger scene to gather detailed images to piece it together. This central area is comparable to a 43mm lens on a digital full frame or 35mm film camera. In essence, it’s almost like having a normal lens and super wide angle lens at the same time, and switching back and forth seamlessly between the two without being consciously aware. It should begin to be apparent why the camera’s record doesn’t always line up with what we remember. But we’re still not done. On top of this we experience our vision more like a video feed than a series of still images, allowing us to comprehend motion. And when it comes to dynamic range - the ability to record information in very bright and dark areas of a scene at once - though the very best digital cameras can compare favourably to our eyes, they have limited ways to display that full range of light, be it on an electronic screen or in print form, without some manipulation of the tones. This actually is one of the most common reasons why many photographs straight out the camera don’t match what we see with our eyes, and why most serious photographers today (including myself) use some form of post camera software to adjust the image. The above photograph was in need of this compensation. But our vision (again seamlessly) does this for us in most situations, by adjusting for different levels of brightness as we scan around the scene. Our brain can also filter out or downplay areas of the scene which we don’t find particularly important or valuable at the time, and that sometimes leads to distracting surprises later when we look at the photograph.

So as you can tell from this brief comparison between the camera and human vision, apart from some basic similarities, they really are quite different from each other. If you’re so inclined to do so, further exploration into the complexities of our eyesight will illustrate the marvel of design it truly is, and to my mind bears witness to its being from the hand of an intelligent designer. Just as we understand that a camera is the result of a designer/maker, it follows that the human body, vastly more complex, and of which the eye is only a part, would be so as well.

As for me, as a photographer/artist I endeavour to understand the limitations as well as leverage the strengths of the creative photographic process, and enjoy trying to embody through print, the beauty of God’s creation.

WJ

All Posts