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A mbient conditions are constantly changing, providing an infinite diversity of photographic potential. Of even more significance is the artist's vision and interpretation of personal sensations. This is the crux of the looking versus seeing concept in visual arts.
Looking: Light passes through the cornea and lens of the eye, hits the retina, stimulating rods and cones to initiate signals sent along the optic nerve.
Seeing: The brain actually processes the received signal information, based upon prior knowledge and experience, and assigns meaning to the images received.
Visual perception is how we interrupt the external world through communication that occurs between the eyes and brain. This communication takes into account what we individually construct as reality (limited by our sensory capability), our mental models of how things should be (light, distance, form, color, etc.), and culminates in the visual experience.
Perception is therefore under our conscious control, but only to the extent we choose to exercise it. As a committed image-maker, dedicated to the craft, I endeavor to remain cognizant and aware of this potential. By internally processing sensations based on different internal mental models, visual perception is extended.
“A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.” - Michelangelo
