Jpeg and RAW: Slots in the Mind

Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.
Ansel Adams ( https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/perception-quotes)


Hmmm!  The mind is a very amazing thing to observe and observing it cannot only be highly entertaining, I am discovering, but very, very much growth enhancing.  We can begin true healing of the world, I believe, when we are first willing to step into the only place where fixing takes place ...in the individual  mind.

I love observing my mind. I have been observing it nd over the last 24 hours and was surprised to  see how it so neatly  relates to photography and camera function.

WTF (front)?

Bear with me....

 I have a camera with a double card slot.  Because I am still learning and comparing as a photographer, one of my cards I reserve for JPeg images, the other for shooting in RAW.

Jpeg and the Camera

The camera does most of the work with JPeg images...it selectively filters out the unnecessary visuals that are happening around me while I am shooting  and distorts the image truths in a way that is most aesthetic and appealing to the eye.  Even if I shot  in manual mode, Jpeg images reveal that a  lot of the work is done by the camera, not me, by  blurring backgrounds, flattening dimensions, creating contrast or eliminating noise.

It leaves a lot of what the camera deems unnecessary out! The data file is therefore  reasonably small and easy to work with.  When I am shooting and want to get quick feedback on my images on my monitor, JPeg allows me to see the image in a mostly processed form. It's goal is to create the most appealing image, not necessarily the most honest one.

There is a down side to this. Because the camera already processed and left so much of the information out of the image, I have very little ability to alter that image afterwards in post processing. I have very little control over the perception of the world the camera offers me.


RAW and the Camera

RAW on the other hands is, as the name appears...honest and real.  It picks up and stores  everything around me even if I cannot pick it up with these poorly seeing eyes on my head. Every colour variation, every highlight, or shadow, every line is picked up onto the card in the slot assigned to RAW. 

It picks up so much information that the camera does not have the capability of processing it and making sense of it. If I want to get feedback while I am shooting, I get little help.  The RAW images that show up on my monitor are blurry and unclear.  They won't even show up on a regular photo program when I download them to a computer.  They need a special program that is equipped, open and receptive  to handling such photos. 

 Lightroom is such a program.  When I go to Lightroom with my RAW images I see so much more than I did when I was shooting .  There is so much vivid detail! After downloading the detailed images , I can do as the camera did with the JPeg images.  I, instead of the camera,  can process the photos and determine how much shadow or light I want, how much clarity, noise or sharpening etc. I can take that information and rework it in a way that allows me to create what I consider to be the most appealing image. I, in a sense, can determine how I see and express the world.

What the heck does this have to do with the mind, crazy lady?

 I have mentioned before how my mind works, right?  How sometimes, in a heightened experience, I seem to be confused, picking up and perceiving only a limited amount of information and then  later ...boom ...I am bombarded with vivid detail? It feels like those vague and shallow moments were re- opened in Lightroom...and I see and remember with intense clarity and detail the raw truth of what went down.

My mind, like my camera, has two slots for how I perceive the world and therefore determines what I can do with those perceptions. I want to use yesterday's experience to illustrate.

Jpeg and the Mind


While I was having the ultrasound done  and later discussing the results ...my mind was using the Jpeg slot.  I was just allowing the mind to decide what it wanted to  pick up from the experience, what it wanted to store  and what it wanted to  do with the information.  The goal was to create the most appealing perception. 

Of course, I wanted peace of mind.  I wanted to feel that others were taking care of this and that it was out of my hands.  I wanted to know it was coming to an end!  I wanted to feel that sense of trust! I wanted to hear that I did not have cancer...that the boulder was being rolled out of the way. 

"Click! Click! Click!" went the mind and it only picked up information that would support that.  It left everything else out! That was why I left feeling such peace.  As I viewed my images during shooting (in that moment) they looked so good.  It was a successful shoot. It was a successful appointment. I left feeling peace.

RAW and the Mind

I kept this Jpeg induced peace for most of the day, forgetting that I also shot in RAW.  Pain is usually a reminder that I have a memory card to down load. An increasing amount of discomfort, since the ultrasound, became like a click of the mouse to open Light room on my mental computer. At three O'clock in the am...boom...I was transported into the program.  I was looking at those moments in vivid detail showing everything the Jpeg part of my mind missed.  It was kind of overwhelming and more than a bit disheartening to see that peace I so longed for  shrivel up in the noise of what I was looking at.

Basically all I could do, if I wanted the honesty of RAW memories,  was process the reality that nothing has really changed.  Why would I perceive that another  ultrasound ...the  same test I had done three times, that totally missed this area each time ...be the end to all this?? Why was it even repeated?  That just didn't make sense to me.  You think the MRI would have been repeated??  How did my mental camera capture peace in that?

How could I assume that the exact same non-committal  explanation I received four times before was this time the positive answer I was looking for , when if anything there is more evidence to support that it isn't?

What I missed in Jpeg mode that showed up in RAW, was what has changed. I now have evidence of that area on an MRI.  It is there?  The MRI did pick up something. What has changed is the amount of pain I am experiencing. It has been pretty much nonstop since the ultrasound. Even though the tech was gentle...the probing instigated something.  It is more in the side and under the arm than it was. I am now willing to call it pain rather than discomfort.

And I was asked to palpate the area regularly.  I hadn't palpated since the MRI...feeling no need to.  When I palpated last night...I was not surprised to discover, it is still there.  It isn't any smaller. And when I palpate now it leaves me with an increased intensity of discomfort afterwards.  Something is going on there.  I do not know what it is but it is not "normal tissue"!!!

Jpeg or RAW?

Man...in RAW's version of the experience I am no further ahead am I?  I much prefer Jpeg's limited, sweet and positive version.  So what do I do? Which one do I choose?

The Happy Medium

When I look at this experience, I need to find some place in the middle.  I  need to find a happy medium where Life is allowed to be Life, and the mind is allowed to perceive what it perceives.  But I don't have to wait for the mind to offer me its version of reality. I don't have to believe what it shows me,  I don't have to settle for its limited vision. Nor do I have to become overwhelmed with too much information and detail. I can instead create a better picture of what truth and clarity  sees with the tools and the skills I have gained over the years.

Yes there is something there...but I do not have to constantly point my lens in that direction. 

I can, instead,  focus on the Greater picture hidden beneath these JPeg and Raw images, picture no camera would ever be able to pick up.  That is what I need to put in the center of my mental frame.  Even though it is formless and invisible, it is still very real and worthy of my camera's and my minds full focus.  It is the only truth.

All is well.

All is well.