As a hobbyist photographer I’ve always wondered just how much my depression may have influenced my shot style and my perception of my material. I happened upon a few discussions online about this very thing and it proved to be an interesting read.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/depression-color-perception-research_us_55e86ba0e4b0aec9f35657f6
The approach of the study lent some intriguing findings between the perceptual and emotional parts of the mind. While I’m slightly colorblind (red/green) I’ve often felt that during my lowest depressive episodes I’ve always felt like I see the world in a washed out hue. Sunsets look boring, smiles and people’s faces take on a different sense to me. It’s nice to see that I wasn’t entirely off the mark, but it begs the question just how much of the world around us is really just a matter of our own intention changing the perceived reality.
I’ve sort of taken to adding this to my bag of ‘indicators’ and things I have to watch out for as my mood shifts. Hopefully having additional markers to when depression is starting to increase will give me a bit more runway to try and deal with the episodes before they become too severe.
