Here is a crazy puzzle I've pondered off and on these past several years. On the most tangible level, it involves point-of-focus. Point-of-focus for the eyes, and point-of focus for a camera. This is the first time I've mapped it out in writing, and it's hard to describe the variables clearly, but here goes.

Let's say in this puzzle, there is a flower precisely 8 inches away, and a tree precisely 80 yards away.

The healthy human eye automatically adjusts its focal point, the 8 inches away object is near, the 80 yards is far. Both are seen in sharp detail, neither is blurred because the eyes adjust to the different distances. If you manually focused your camera, the flower would require a near setting, the tree a more distant setting.

Now, let's say there is a painting hanging on a wall 3 feet away where the artist has produced a true-to-life reproduction of a flower 8 inches away and a tree 80 yards away. The healthy human eyes no longer focus at 8 inches or at 80 yards. They focus on the distance of the painting. They focus on the surface of the canvas. The tree and flower are paint on a flat surface, and the focal point is the distance of that flat surface, 3 feet, not the original distances of the flower and the tree. If you were to manually focus your camera lens, it would be at 3 feet, whether you aimed toward the tree or the flower part of the painting.

Now here's the puzzle: Let's say you are facing a mirror, the tree 80 yards away. You gaze at the reflection of the tree. Do your eyes adjust to 80 yards, or to the glass up close to you where you could touch the reflection of the distant tree with your fingertips? You and the flower are 8 inches away from the mirror. How far is the focal point when you gaze at the reflection of the flower?

Now you have your camera in hand. You face the mirror and take a photo of the reflection of the flower, and of the tree 80 yards back, visible on the glass surface of the mirror. At what focal setting is the flower clear? the tree? You turn around and face the tree. At what distance does the camera focus then? You take a picture.

Now you've made a poster of each of the images you took. You have them on a wall, again, 3 feet away. You look at the poster of the mirror reflection of the flower and tree. You look at the poster of the flower and tree. At what distance do the eyes focus? (and the camera?)

I've been thinking about this a long time, and probably have the answers to these questions. But my last questions would be Why? and How is this important?