Why does the moon look like a beautiful Renaissance painting face to me when looking at it with the naked eye, but in any photograph of the moon I just don’t see it?

Question

As above. Is my brain creating the image due to bad eyesight?

In: Planetary Science

Answer 1

Part of the beauty is the span around it. In a picture it’s limited

In real life. The perspectives and your relative location/ size / relationship to it changes

A picture is a picture.

But your reality is more significant

Answer 2

Your brain tries to find patterns in everything it can. When looking at the moon from a distance, you don’t get nearly as many context clues as a closer view from a photograph.

If your brain gets enough clues that it doesn’t look like a face, then it won’t see it as a face.

It’s really amazing how powerful context clues are on our perception

Answer 3

we humans see very well in the dark because our brains complete the missing information, so you are seeing a reconstruction of the real thing, that’s why you cannot take a good photo of the moon without optical zooming.