Does your camera give you real true color?

"I took this photo last weekend while I was out hiking in the mountains," said the Tao, while showing a photograph of a beautiful landscape to the students.

There were lots of oohs and aahs from the students. Then, as the inevitable silence descended, one student, who was a photography enthusiast, spoke up.

"That looks very beautiful," the student said. "Are these the real colors out of the camera? You have a Canon 5D, right? The colors look so saturated. Are they photoshopped?"

"First of all, cameras do not produce 'real' colors", the Tao said. "What you see out of your camera screen is only an approximation of the reality the camera sees. What you are seeing here now is how that approximation of the reality looks on my computer monitor. And yes, I have adjusted the colors to suit my sense of reality..."

"I thought so. The colors look saturated ..." the student persisted.

"It is possible that it looks saturated to you because you did not see the scene when I did, from where I did, how I did. You did not see it with my eyes," Tao said. "How do we know that we both see the same color the same way? So, in essence, what I am showing you here is an approximation of what I think my visual reality was at that moment in time."

"Our realities can be different, then," said the student.

"We are beginning to see eye to eye in this matter," the Tao smiled. "Everyone's reality is different. And that's a fine thing."

"Amen," said the student.