Appparently, I've been seeing colours differently

Apparently, I’m colourblind

For months. No, wait — years; my wife has been mocking me for what colours I think things are.

I’ve always thought it was just a matter of opinion, figuring out the names for various shades. And when it came to picking colours to paint our house, I thought she was just being her usual self, a little more pernickety than me.

I like to keep things simple. I don’t need to overcomplicate things.

I can recall conversations along these lines:

Wife: Which one do you prefer?

Me: That one. (Points to a sample on the wall.)

Wife: I’m not sure about that one. It’s more of a bluey grey.

Me: What do you mean, a bluey grey? There’s no blue in it. It’s just grey.

And this kind of thing has gone on for years. But a couple of things recently made me wonder if there might be more to it.

Playing Monopoly Deal, I struggled to see the difference between what I’d call lime green and what she called yellow.

Then, the other night, she mentioned the orange lantern on our outdoor dinner table. Except I thought it was green.

She took a picture of it and showed me. On her phone, it was quite clearly orange. But it looked nothing like what was sitting on the table in front of me.

To her and our son, the two looked identical.

It was genuinely bizarre. We were looking at the same thing and apparently seeing something completely different.

Time to do a colour-blind test. Her suggestion. 

Well, if the test was anything to go by, my wife got full marks.

I got two right.

So, what does this mean for my photography?

It took me back to when I first started photography and a friend was talking me through editing.

He was seeing all sorts of shades of colour that I literally didn’t know what he was talking about. How was he seeing these marginal differences? Or perhaps they weren’t marginal at all. Perhaps they were really bloody obvious.

In fact, they must have been, because one of the first things he said to me about my photography was:

“Why do you take good photos and then go all ISIS on them in post?”

At the time, I laughed. I take criticism pretty well, particularly when there’s something to learn from it. So my editing became extremely subtle, for fear of going too far in the wrong direction.

Better to keep it natural than completely overdo it, right?

Wrong.

I was then asked why I wasn’t doing more to my images.

So now I’m wondering: how much of my approach to processing has actually been shaped by seeing colour differently? Have I spent years being overly conservative in post because I literally couldn’t see what other people see?

I don't know. But I'll keep paying attention to it as I continue with photography and all the experiences that come with it here in Costa Rica, although so far I don't think it's had much of an impact.

Have you had a similar experience?

If you’re colourblind and have any advice on working with colour in photography, I’d genuinely love to hear from you. You can drop me an email — I’d be fascinated to hear how you approach it.

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