Lens Distortion

Yesterday I was working on a Christmas project, taking pictures of something with a grid on it.  Much to my surprise, when I uploaded the pictures the grid marks were warped.  In the middle of the picture they were straight, but towards all four corners the lines curved.  I retook the pictures at different distances and settings and with my other camera, but I could not get a picture where all of the lines were straight.

I was reminded of that again this morning when I was working with this picture.  Sure enough, now that I knew what to look for, the thing in the picture that should be straight (the horizon), wasn’t.  And not just because of the curve of the earth.  It’s because of my cameras.  (This problem might be solved by the use of a more expensive camera/lens.  But that is neither here nor there.)

As I worked throughout the day yesterday this stayed on my mind—the thought that I have never realized until this moment that my cameras are taking pictures that are literally distorted.  You see, most of the pictures I’m taking aren’t a grid of straight lines, and so a little distortion in the corners isn’t a big deal.  And really, a little distortion probably doesn’t matter.  (Unless the distortion happens right on someone’s nose, and then I owe them an apology!)  But it is interesting to me to know that what I used to think was an exact (two dimensional) representation, in fact isn’t.

 

This was a good reminder to me that the same situation exists mentally.  I experience an interaction, have a conversation, remember a conflict, and my instinct is to think that I have an exact representation in my mind of what happened.  The truth of the matter is that everything I see, hear, and experience,  is filtered through my personal lens, just as surely as those pictures were “filtered” through the lens of my camera.  My personal lens may not warp horizontal lines, but it skews things in different ways.  Sometimes my experiences are filtered through the my-family-never-had-enough scarcity mentality.  Most of the time my thoughts are filtered through the the-way-it-works-for-me-is-the-best-way filter.  Recently I’m sure everything is seen through the I’m-just-more-stressed-than-normal-because-my-husband-doesn’t-have-a-job lens. 

Long ago I had a confrontational conversation with someone with whom I’d had several misunderstandings.  She had said some things that just seemed harsh and unloving.  As she explained herself I felt confused—how could we have miscommunicated so badly?  Things that had seemed like they could have one (unkind) explanation were in fact totally rational when I heard her explanation.  We were both certain we were “seeing clearly,” but my lens had distorted her comments, just as her lens had distorted mine.

Many years ago I read the verse in Corinthians:

For now we see through a glass, darkly…

I simply could not understand what it meant, but now (to some degree, anyway) I do.  And I look forward to the day of true clarity.

 

I’m going to be thinking about this today and hopefully in the coming weeks.  Hopefully I will be remembering those warped lines.  Trying to stop myself from making the assumption that how I see things is representative of how they actually and literally are.  Hoping that I can remember that sometimes my assumptions are flawed in minor ways, and sometimes they are distorted to the point of being unusable.  Clarifying and getting more information where needed. 

Judging less.  Loving more…