The largest unintended consequence of mainstream photography, especially colour photography, might be a change in how we see reality. Without some sort of shar

The largest unintended consequence of mainstream photography, especially colour photography, might be a change in how we see reality. Without some sort of shared anchor, no two people see one scene the same way. A mind constantly predicts and filters things based on prior experience unique to that mind; what we see is heavily shaped by what we expect to see, our current mood, whom we are with, what we did before, what we are smelling, etc. When we stand on a roof of a building and look in the same direction, I see an intricate tangle of colorful pencil towers, you see traffic jams and potholes, she sees that one annoying advertisement billboard, he sees grey polluted air. What color is that sky? Is your blue the same as my blue? Until mainstream consumer photography, the only way to convey and compare what we see was through words or painting. Now that we all have cameras in our pockets, anchoring is finally at our disposal. The camera sensor takes in light values beyond what any reproduction medium can handle and fits it into a tiny display-referred space, throwing away any subjectivity as well as a good chunk of colour and dynamic range. Is this a blessing or a curse? Do we mistakenly believe that a bland JPEG render or film print—designed by camera or film developer to suit the widest possible variety of scenes, and thus fitting almost no scene perfectly (and definitely not geared towards conveying what we actually see)—is what reality is actually like? When we anchor to that, are we unconsciously limiting our perception and imagination?