I have had glasses now for 6 years. In that time, for one reason or another I had never bothered to get prescription sunglasses and to be honest I don’t know why. Prior to my needing prescription glasses I had always worn polarized sunglasses especially on and around water. You can just see much better with them because they really cut any glare. My prescription is not that strong but I do need correction for both far and near. Because I can not stand having anything appear blurry I wear my glasses constantly and not having prescription sunglasses I have spent the last 6 years with basically no sunglasses.

This year, in talking with my eye doctor I learned that prolonged exposure to ultra-violet light is a factor in the formation of cataracts. Sunglasses help to prevent this. Why I am just learning this I do not know but I do know that my family has a propensity for cataracts. Both my grandmother and my father have had cataracts. I too, have the beginning stages of a cataract. Not to fear though, on a scale of 1 to 4 mine’s about a 0.5. My doctor assures me that I have many more years before I will have to deal with it head on.

Once I re-learned (dumb) the importance of sunglasses I went ahead and ordered a pair along with a new pair of regular glasses. Yesterday I picked up both pair and today I took my first walk along the river with my new Ray Ban Polarized Prescription Sunglasses. Holy shit…!! What a difference…!! Everything was clear, the water was a deep green, there was no glare, I could see to the bottom of the river, all the colors of everything were brighter and more saturated. I felt like I was walking in OZ.

Because of my love of photography I very rarely go anywhere without a camera and today was no exception. I had my Canon S95 advanced point & shoot with me. It has a large, roughly 2″×3″ display on the back and lots of menus and controls.  Typically, as I walk, if I see something interesting I’ll stop and shoot a photo or two and then move on. Today I came upon an interesting pile up of sticks along the waters edge. As I composed the shot I turned the camera from a landscape to a portrait orientation and much to my surprise, the display blanked, it went completely black! WTF over…! I turned it back to landscape and the display lit back up with the pile of sticks. I turned it back to portrait and it blanked again. Shit…..so I took the photo in landscape orientation and started walking again.

For the next 35 minutes as I walked, I reset the camera twice and went through every menu and setting at least three times trying to figure what I might have done to enable the magical “Portrait Orientation Display Blanking Mode”. I could not figure it out and I almost tripped and fell down the river steps into the water. Nice..! No matter how I held the camera, pointed up to the sky or pointed straight down to the ground as soon as I turned it to a portrait orientation the display blanked. By this time I was convinced that my camera was FUBAR.

As I approached the Market Street Bridge where the water starts to get deeper I noticed a very large catfish lying on the bottom of the river about 4 feet down. Now, so you know, it’s not unusual for me to speak out loud when I’m alone (I’m crazy) and just as I said, “I can see you Mr. Catfish”, it dawned on me what my camera problem was. It wasn’t my camera at all, it was my new Ray Ban Polarized Prescription Sunglasses. As I turned the camera the polarization blocked out the display. When I took off the glasses I confirmed that the display was there the whole time. I felt like such an idiot. I don’t know how I would have explained falling in the river losing my new Ray Ban Polarized Prescription Sunglasses and ruining my camera all in one lunchtime outing.

And when I got back I learned from Mr. Google:

Polarizing lenses work by filtering out horizontal light that causes glare. Imagine those slatted window blinds in an office, that’s kind of how polarizing lenses work. LCD displays also have a polarizing filter, but the “slats” are generally at around a 45 degree angle. this means when you tilt your glasses at the right angle, all of the light is filtered out and the screen becomes blank.

It’s good to learn something everyday.

Albums | National Nurse Anesthetist Week | Six Lighthouses