Extending The Normal Limits

Through macro photography I learned to extend what I thought were the normal limits of my vision. In other words I noticed things I had never noticed before. Macro photography revealed to me the different colours of the spectrum in tiny drops of
water. Even when I was no longer looking through the camera lens I began to notice with a "magnified sensitivity", a dew drop on a tree branch or a spider web at large distances. By changing my position relative to the drop, the colour in the drop would change through the colours of the spectrum.

Dew drops on spider web

I became aware of other subtle perceptions. While photographing stars I learned that the faint ones were invisible when looked at directly with one's central vision (fovea centralis) but became visible when viewed indirectly with one's peripheral vision demonstrating that peripheral vision is much more sensitive to light. Through long time-exposures the film revealed that stars are actually different colours.

While observing the moving colour patterns on soap film surfaces through the viewfinder of the camera I noticed that the same "colour" appeared different to each eye.

I learned to observe another phenomenon after photographing the strobe lights on communications towers. Through normal observation these lights appear to flash on only once for a brief fraction of a second every few seconds. The film through panning action of the camera revealed that each one of those brief flashes in fact contained the numerous on and off flashes caused by a strobe which I found in some cases to be a phenomenal 17 times! I learned to observe this strobe action with the naked eye by "picking up the flashes of light" with my peripheral vision while panning my head at the appropriate moment.

"Strobe-like" demonstration at a frequency of one, one-hundredths of a second:

Click on this strobe to see the Acme Strobe Company
Stage Set

This frequency is not fast enough to demonstrate the above experiment here. The sensitivity of peripheral vision can however be demonstrated if you have noticed its ability to perceive the flickering of light emanating from the screen of a monitor with a lower refresh rate.
To go off on a tangent link through the strobe at left to see the "Acme Strobe Company Stage Set".

Then there is the phenomenon of flickering white light which is observed with peripheral vision in the absolute darkness in a forest at night or in a dark room. Could this be the aura?
Go on a NightWalking Trip.

Then there is the aurora of Mother Earth. See my animation of the Aurora Borealis in colour.

I am intrigued by what lies beyond the narrow range of our sensory perceptions which occupy only a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum.

As it turns out, not only electro-magnetic radiation, but the majority of life forms, namely microbes, are invisible to the naked eye. This does not prevent microbes from being responsible to a large degree, for affairs on this planet. More than a billion years ago there was no free oxygen in the oceans or atmosphere. Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) in water used sunlight through photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide into sugar and produced oxygen as a waste product. The dissolved oxygen reacted with the iron in the oceans which precipated as rust on the ocean floor producing the material from which steel is made. When all of the iron was oxidized, oxygen began to accumulate in the atmosphere which is necessary for our existence. According to Lynn Margulis all life on Earth today derived from common ancestors. Bacteria not only are the building blocks of life, but also occupy and are indispensable to every other living being on Earth. We being more complex creatures are both surrounded by them and composed of them. Instead of viewing ourselves as the pinnacle of evolution, it may be more accurate to think of ourselves as a colony of closely associated bacteria. Fully 10 percent of our own dry weight consists of bacteria, some of which - like those in our intestines that produce vitamin B12 - we cannot live without. The descendant of Precambrian bacteria are carried within the cells of our own bodies in the form of mitochondria which burn sugar and oxygen to generate energy.

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