“What is reality? The very act of seeing is to a large degree creative, for we never perceive reality as such, nor can we ever do so. Seeing is the result of training from birth and of the effects of the cultural inheritance of that training. The mind created images from the rough, raw material of the light waves picked up by the optic nerves and transmitted upside-down to the brain, where it is transmuted, the right way up, into significant forms which help us to survive.

From the very limitations of all our senses we are able to create a human world from the chaos of that so-called reality which we do not, and may never be able, fully to comprehend. Seeing is too often taken for granted, but it is by no means the simple, obvious activity it is generally taken to be. It is, indeed, the most extraordinary and inexplicable mystery.”

Eric de Maré, Colour Photography