What I see is might not be what you see

When I am in Tucson, I am always struck again by the difference between the ratios on computer monitors. Down here I use my laptop but also have a wide screen monitor. I need both to work with the photos, cropping, sharpening or darkening because I have learned in the past that my laptop doesn't do the color right-- but my monitor doesn't do the ratios right. So it requires both to adjust a photograph.

This monitor, being a wide screen (my only option to buy when the old monitor died), stretches the width of objects. Well the monitor in Oregon does too but not quite so effectively. I have done some looking to see if I can solve this problem. In Oregon, it will be resolved by a new video card for my old computer, but in Tucson there are not enough options to do anything but be aware of it for what it is.

If I were to try and make the monitor image look like a print would, I could stretch it... although when I printed it, I'd probably look like the funny lady in the old Fun Houses where there were mirrors that either squashed or stretched your image.

This all bothers me because when caring about composition, you want the potential print to look the same on the monitor. Lotsa luck with that. Not to mention, I have enough extra pounds on my frame that I don't want to add more when sharing a photograph. How do I even know what someone else is seeing? Do you see what I see on the laptop, the monitor, or something totally different?

The only compensation I have for it is that it makes a good illustration for how humans see life. Most of us know this. We don't see the same things even when looking at the same objects. I might look in my mirror and see my nose is too large, while someone else never even sees that, and a third might think my gosh why didn't she have a nose job? When something happens in the world, one will interpret it as good while another sees it as terrible-- same event.

It's not surprising to me that only 20% or so of Republicans see Obama as doing well when 80% or so of Democrats see him as doing well. In the newspaper, they made a big thing out of that divided poll (welcome to the United States), but the question for how well you see him doing depends on the filter through which you are looking as well as what you thought was good to do.

If you wanted to see the US continue to torture, you won't like hearing them say they will not do so. If you thought you could have a war and low taxes, you will be irked when someone reminds you that things have a cost. From Republicans, I keep hearing that lowering taxes will boom the economy. I don't see the evidence. They evidently do or believe someone else who said it was there.

If we can't even make a monitor where everyone sees the same thing, I guess there's not much hope we humans will see it the same when it's involving things a lot more important. Ideally, we'd like to think that we see the same world and that while we might interpret an event differently, we did see the same thing. Except we didn't.

So if you see these photos of me down here as being short and squat, I am not. If you see them as tall and slim... well, hey, that's just how it was ;) ... internet symbol meaning wink.

(Photos are from April in Tucson Mountain Park and Catalina State Park.)