View allAll Photos Tagged Perception
Olympus OM2n / Zuiko 35mm f2.8 / Kodak Ektar 100
If you'd rather see the camera it's here
Eastbourne, East Sussex, UK
“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” - Dorothea Lange
As stated in the quote above, photography has taught me to see, where my way of seeing the world is kind of split into two parts: one "eye" perceives the world as a whole, where the other one is my photographic eye which thinks in motifs and pictures. These two perceptions are not the same (at least for me) since beautiful things don’t necessarily look beautiful in a picture because there are so many factors which can make a picture less attractive. Conversely, you can use so many techniques like changing the overall composition, the depth of field, the dynamic range, the colors etc. to make a picture interesting.
So this is a first attempt to this idea, where I just quickly made a close-up of my eyes. Since the weather wasn't really good I was too lazy to go outside and thus I placed my camera at the windowsill and took a picture with my macro using a remote control. Hope you like it!
I’m often asked about the world that insects can see when people enjoy my UV fluorescence images, often confusing two very different things: UV reflectance and UV fluorescence. This post will hopefully demystify that, with a simple Shasta Daisy!
On the left, we see the visible-light image of the flower. Pretty ordinary! It’s really just here for reference to the images in the center and right. The central image is UV reflectance, and the right image is UV fluorescence. You can see why I do a lot more UV fluorescence work!
UV Reflectance is the direct observation of ultraviolet light. This requires some tricky hardware, you need:
- A camera modified for full spectrum photography (shot with a converted Lumix GX85)
- A bright source of UV light
- A lens that has very good ultraviolet transmission properties
- A VERY good “UV Black” filter that allows for the transmission of ultraviolet light but zero visible or infrared light.
In contrast, for Ultraviolet fluorescence photography, you need:
- A pure ultraviolet light source
UV Reflectance can reveal hidden patterns in flowers that insects are able to perceive along with visible light. They don’t see UV light exclusively, but their vision extends into this spectrum and some flowers take advantage of that. Daisies do not. Sunflowers, on the other hand? Solidly yellow petals to our eyes will reveal a dark bullseye pattern in the ultraviolet spectrum: donkom.ca/bts/DKP_9769-UV.jpg . Marsh Marigolds have a slightly more complex pattern ( www.flickr.com/photos/donkom/34783610615/ , which also shows visible and infrared versions). Not all flowers use this technique of reflecting back UV light to guide insects towards them, and while it is fun to explore the patterns it doesn’t have the same drama and colour as UV fluorescence.
Directly observing UV light is difficult, but UV fluorescence is a much easier subject to tackle. You use your regular camera to collect regular light, albeit in a darkened room. You just need a good pure UV light source that doesn't leak into the visible spectrum which would contaminate the results. When ultraviolet light hits the flower, some of that light excites electrons in the atoms of the flower. Those electrons rise to a higher orbit but very quickly decay back down, and in the process of doing so release energy in the form of… visible light! UV light goes in, visible light in much smaller quantities come out. You camera captures this visible light.
This is “unnatural” in the sense that there is no way to observe this in nature – the sun clearly emits visible and infrared light in far more abundance than ultraviolet light. UV fluorescence is not what insects can see, it’s what no living thing could see without the aid of the inventions of mankind. It’s “real”, but also hidden from reality. And on the other side, there is something elegant about the mostly-black flower that we know to be white to our own perceptions. The world beyond our own reality is worth exploring.
Can you tell I’m going through my shot list for my upcoming book?? This kind of information will be found within the pages of Macro Photography: The Universe at Our Feet, currently being funded on Kickstarter - www.kickstarter.com/projects/donkom/ - it would be great to have your support for the project and also get a copy when it’s out in December!
…. Oh hey, you’re still here? You actually wanted to know MORE about UV reflectance? Sure, here we go.
The lenses with the cheapest cost and best transmission properties can be found on eBay from the seller “igoriginal”: www.ebay.com/itm//273878542781 .
The filters included with that lens are decent, but if you want the very best at cancelling out visible AND infrared light, you need a two filter combo from maxmax.com:
XNite 330C: www.maxmax.com/shopper/product/15065-xnite33052c-x-nite-3...
XNite BP1: h www.maxmax.com/shopper/product/15072-xnitebp152-x-nite-ba...
Those links are for 52mm filters, which would fit on the above-mentioned lens. You’d still need a camera converted to full-spectrum photography, and one of the biggest outfits for that is LifePixel: www.lifepixel.com/?ar=3
Down the rabbit hole you go. :)
Which quote has more significance to this image?
This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight
-Florence & The Machine
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
-Robert Frost
I decided to try editing this image with paint.
This is the start of a possible series that will explore manual photo editing. Please do not mistake this for a full painting. It's goal is to make the viewer question what it is and what it is not.
« La réalité est une chose mystérieuse et fluctuante, car la perception que nous en avons ne reste jamais la même. » de Joe Tan
Thanks for all your comments, awards, faves and congrats.
(Please do not use without my written permission.)
Highest position: 15 on Sunday, November 18, 2012
We perceive the world as we see it. Our perception is based on what we see and what we want to see.
The reality is, if you imagine positive, you’ll end up in having a positive image of your surroundings.
Sunsets have always been part of my inspiration, it always attracts my attention, that brings me close to the nature.
(Clifton Beach, Karachi - Pakistan)
I absolutely love the fact that the title is portrayed in the picture.
'Selective perception' is the process by which individuals perceive what they want to in media messages while ignoring opposing viewpoints. It is a broad term to identify the behavior all people exhibit to tend to "see things" based on their particular frame of reference.
La vipère aspic est sourde, comme beaucoup de serpents, mais sa langue bifide lui permet de percevoir son environnement proche. ( Vipera aspis )
Ma page Facebook : www.facebook.com/BaladesSauvages/
I found a captioned picture on Facebook with similar text.
I modified it to fit me specifically.
Please feel free to modify this by adding your own picture and name if it fits your self perception as well.
I have been thinking about how we look at things that aren't real. I'm talking about spaceships, cars and photoediting.
I mean, we know how a car is supposed to look like. We see them every day, real cars, our brains are tuned to them in terms of how they look and move around us. Spaceships are a different thing, we're not that used to seeing them around. Does that make a difference when making images with a scale model? Is a spaceship an easier sell than a car?
I made an experiment with the Maserati Boomerang model I've been building during the past couple of months.
"Depth Perception:" Aldous Huxley has stated, "There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception." Looking into this scene, it became difficult for me to tell the depth of the water; some of the submerged rocks were visible below the surface, but the reflections from the trees and rocks above began to play tricks on my eyes. I did end up crossing the creek and found the deepness varied with the undulating terrain below.
Cézanne Le Rocher Rouge. Photographie prise au Carrière de Bibemus à Aix en Provence à l'endroit même où le peintre a réalisé son paysage. Ce montage pose des questions de perception; oppose et lie photographie et peinture... queendotkoong.tumblr.com/post/31838316699/en-ce-moment-si...