Welcome to Quantum Light Studio!

Despite the current economic mess, we live in an amazing time in which developments in quantum physics, cosmology and neuroscience are changing our appreciation of reality.  You may think this an odd combination but the frontiers of each field confront the nature of reality and our perception of it.  In black holes, we can simultaneously be incinerated at the horizon and pass through to spend an enternity floating to the singularity.  Two photons produced together remain entangled such that a change in one immediately produces a change in the other even if they are thousands of light years apart.  

Our perception of the universe is only a mental model of reality.  In most situations, it  functions adequately allowing us to navigate our world finding food and shelter while avoiding predators.  But at the extremes, the very large and the very small, the model breaks down and we are confronted with the fact that what we see, hear, smell, taste and touch is not reality.

As photographers, we possess a visceral understanding of the difference between our perception of reality and our photographs.  It is only a small additional step to appreciate that our perception may be vastly different than any objective reality.  For example, consider the differences and similarities in which we and our cameras"see" reality.  A camera's lens focuses light on a sensor that generates an electronic data set.  Internal algorithms use this information to produce an image by adjusting color, contrast and sharpness.  Depending on the camera settings, the algorithms can produce drastically different images. 

Similarly, the lens of our eye focuses light on our biological light sensor, the retina, that then produces a stream of biochemical data.  This data is conveyed via the optic nerve to the first of several visual centers in the brain.  At this point the "image" is unsharp and consists mainly of planes of color and contrast.  Further, because our eyes can only take in a limited part of the visual field at one time and have a significant central blind spot, they have to jumo around constantly.  Here is where something startling occurs.  Our brain takes this jumpy, unsharp data and uses its own internal algorithms to sharpen and enhance the "image" into something recogizable.  Of course, unlike the camera's sensor, we didn't have a team of developers writing code for our visual centers.  So, where do our "algorithms" come from?  The fMRI (functional MRI) allows scientists to image the brain while it is undertaking various tasks provides the answer to this question.  As we observe something, various parts of the brain become active contributing to our perception of the thing observed.  Surprisingly, these areas are not limited to those areas of the brain that were traditionally associated with vision but include areas involved with memory, emotion, belief and thought.  Our perception of current reality is inseperable from our experiences, emotional states and beliefs.  In essence, our past experiences and thoughts and our feelings about them created our algorithms.  The perception of reality is indistinguishable from the mind.

We photograph what we see, but what we see is limited by our mind.  Can we loosen or modify the mental strictures to somehow see more or see differently?  For photographers, is there any more exciting or profound journey?

William Schuette