Andreas Feininger

1. A lens is part of a machine, an eye part of a living and thinking human being. As such, the lens mechanically reproduces everything within its field of view, whereas the eye, subject to the control centre of the brain, consciously perceives only those aspects of reality in which his owner is momentarily interested, disregarding and, for all practical purposes, not seeing the rest. In other words, photo-vision is total and objective, human vision is selective and subjective...
2. Visual impressions provide only part of the information which constantly impinges upon our brain where it is translated into conceptual images...
3. The sight sees a subject in the context of its surroundings in a much wider sense than the lens: contemplating a specific subject, we usually experience it as part of a much larger scene. We do not see it fenced in by rigid boundaries (like those provided by a mat or frame surrounding a picture), nor do we see it cut off from adjacent objects by a sudden end of our vision (as in a transparency or print), peripheral vision providing a gradual transition between the object on which we focus, those objects adjacent to it, and others outside our field of view... In contrast, a photograph presents the subject taken out of context, divorced from everything outside the field of view of the lens, no matter how important its influence upon the impression made by the subject...
4. Because we have two eyes, we see reality in stereoscopic form, which means that we can perceive depth directly. In contrast, the camera because it has only one lens... "sees" reality in monoscopic form, the way we would see it with one eye closed... In a photograph, "depth" cannot be rendered directly but must be indicated in symbolic form...
5. The angle of our vision is unalterably fixed. In contrast, by equipping a camera with lenses of appropriate design, we can produce photographs which encompass angles of view that range from a few to more than 180 degrees... 6. The scale in which we see objects situated at specific distances is always the same - a person, say, thirty feet away, has always the same apparent height. In contrast, by choosing a lens of appropriate focal length, we can render almost any subject in almost any scale... 7. The closest viewing distance at which the normal eye is still capable of producing a sharp image is approximately eight inches, but the focusing range of the camera... has no lower limit. (The upper limit, of course, is infinity, the same as that of the eye)... 8. Because of virtually instant accommodation of the eye, our vision functions in such a way that we seem to see everything sharp simultaneously, no matter whether near or far. In contrast, the lens can be focused on only one specific plane in depth at one time, rendering objects in front of and behind this plane increasingly blurred, the further away from it they are...
9. The eye is incapable of adding consecutive light impressions - the dimmer the light, the less we see, no matter how hard we try. In contrast, photographic 'vision'... enables a photographer, through time exposures, to produce pictures even when the light is so dim that little or nothing is seen by the eye.
10. Because the eye adjusts itself 'automatically' to changes in brightness when we scan a scene, its 'diaphragm', the iris, contracting and expanding in accordance with different levels of light, we are able to see with almost equal ease detail within the brightly lit and shaded parts of the subject. In contrast, the aperture of the lens remains the same throughout the entire exposure and, if subject contrast is high, may simultaneously be too large (in regard to the subject's brightest parts) and too small (in regard to the subject's darkest parts)...
11. Similarly to the way the eye 'automatically' adjusts itself to changes in brightness of the ambient light, so it adjusts itself to minor changes in colour of the illumination without its owner becoming consciously aware of it...
12. The eye sees colours as 'colour'; black-and-white film 'sees' colours as shades of gray...
13. The eye is sensitive only to that part of the electromagnetic spectrum which we perceive as light (or colour, which is the same thing) but photographic emulsions can also be sensitised to other forms of radiation, specifically, X-rays, infrared, and ultraviolet...
14. The eye is incapable of functioning virtually instantaneously, nor can it clearly perceive objects moving at very high speeds, or retain an image after the subject is gone, or combine several impressions to form a single image; the camera can do all four...
15. The eye is so constructed that we see our surroundings in the form of rectilinear perspective - i.e. lines which we 'know' to be straight look straight... However,... other forms of perspective exist and, accordingly, lenses have been produced which render reality in the form of cylindrical or spherical perspective, both of which are characterised by the fact that straight lines may be rendered as curves...
16. To the eye, the apparent converging of receding parallel lines appears perfectly normal as long as it occurs in the vertical plane (for example, the apparent convergence of railroad tracks), but objectionable when it happens in the vertical plane (for example, the 'converging verticals' in pictures of buildings taken with the camera tilted... The camera, however... renders all receding parallel lines converging, no matter where they lie in the horizontal, vertical, or any other plane.

(From Andreas Feininger (1972): Photographic Seeing, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, pp. 14-20)

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