What I Don't See

   I did a little bog last week on seeing what is in the shadows, which was a way to show the details that were hidden in the patches of dark shadow that came out in a picture that I snapped.

   The same thing is true of color. Depending on the amount of light I let onto the camera sensor through the use of the various settings on the camera itself, and the amount of light that is actually out there in the scene I shoot, the results of the shot may not show all of the available color that is there. Even the eye cannot pick up all of that, especially on a clear sunny day, or one where the light from the sky is filtered through cloud layers or fog.

   Technically, I am illiterate for the most part on how all of this light stuff actually works, but I do know that if I take a picture and it comes out kind of bland, I can take that same image, put it into a processing software program on the computer and get all kinds of different colors and shades of those colors to show up in the finished product. How much of that is because those colors are actually out there but I can't see them, and how much is due to being able to vitalize the color images in the computer, I don't really know, but I do know that it can be done.

  Let's take this image that I shot early one morning on Kiawah as the sun was just beginning its rise into the new day. Notice that the shot is not sharp, not full of color, and is exactly as it looked to me through the naked eye, at least as far as I remember from that day.

   So I put it in the program on the computer and get an altogether different look and feel just by moving some sliders around and enhancing the colors that are in the camera image, but that do not show up in the photo.

   Which is real? How do I define real? Is it what I remember seeing with the naked eye that morning, or was there more that I did not see?

   Is there some relevance to this and to what I see in life and what God sees? My eyesight is so limited, and His is so encompassing. I see only what is in front of me, and He sees it all, including what has gone before that second of sight and what will come after.

   What is the quick lesson for me in all of that? It seems to be about judgement. If I can't even see all of what is out there at that particular time, how can I know what produced it, or what the result will be.

   Maybe I should not be so quick to judge, a moment, or a scene, or perhaps even a fellow person, as I take time to remember:

   What I don't see....