On Visual Perception

I have always been interested in anthropometrics and had I not been in the creative industry, I would probably be a psychologist or an anthropologist. As a coffee painter who focuses on realism I always take into consideration perspective, not just the linear perspective that most artists are familiar with but also the other kinds, there are 13 so far...

    So I asked my boyfriend about my last painting (coffee painting; the cup) and asked me what he thinks about it and he says it isn't finished (which I agree, the cookie needs work). But when I asked which part needed tweaking, he mentioned all the other parts except the cookie which he said already has a lot of details and that the other parts should have sharper details which I intentionally blurred to direct the eye on the coffee cup and well, the cookie... I told him 'that's depth of field (or perspective of blur)'.

    He says 'yeah, that's what the camera does.'

    I said 'so does your eye, the rest of the objects apart from the one you focus on gets blurred.'

    'I can make out the strands on your hair from my peripheral view...'

    'No I don't think so, that's what your brain tells you..'

    Then he says 'and you put halo on the cup, do you see one on me?'

    And I said, 'that's cause light bends on the edges and there's no such thing as a line... Sharp edges are created when light is directly focused on the object...' And we went on about this for a while until he gave up arguing just to stop the discussion. Both of us agreed the painting is not finished but how it would be finished that's our issue and since I'm the artist, of course I won

    Usually I heed his advice but not on this one but I do take into consideration what he said and find myself focusing on my direction while walking the streets observing my peripheral view. Yes I can make out the details but I still think that's because the mind already has a preconceived idea what the details are and in essence, visually, I still perceive my peripheral view as blurred...

    This is important to me, as I focus on realism, to  know how to recreate an illusion of reality... I wonder if people see things as I do...