The title of this article might take you by surprise. "What on earth", you might say, "can I get blind while I'm taking photos?! And what does auto white Balance have to do with it?"

First things first: About the only way you can get eye damage while taking photos is if you look (long enough) at the sun through the viewfinder. Not really likely. The title is used, surprise-surprise, metaphorically.

In this context, "avoiding blindness" means to avoid becoming accustomed to an undesired situation. Repeating an error long enough, and it no longer feels like an error. Our eyes (there is a reason I picked this metaphor) have an admirable ability to getting used to the way a scene (or photos) look like, assuming that it is the proper one and there is nothing wrong with it.

White balance is a critical element in getting the affect you intended

Crucially, sometimes we might have a hunch something's not right, but we can't pinpoint the source of our displeasure. How many times have you been looking at your photos thinking "why on earth doesn't this look right?", being unable to find the reason?

I decided to write a series of articles focusing on technical aspects (part 1 is about auto white balance) that can often lead to this kind of blindness, that is, our inability to understand something's not right with our photos - or, if we do, we're unable to pinpoint its source.

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