Six people living with colorblindness received a chance of a lifetime at Metropolitan State University Denver arts center on Thursday.

For the first time in their lives, with the help of colorblind glasses, the participants saw color in its pure form.

MSU Denver offered six people of various ages EnChroma colorblind glasses, part of a partnership the university has created with the colorblind glasses company. They tested out the glasses on Thursday at MSU Denver’s Center for Visual Arts.

Over 250,000 people in Colorado, 13 million people across the nation and 350 million people worldwide live with colorblindness, a vision deficiency that affects 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women, according to EnChroma data.

The participants said being deprived of color is something that feels normal until it is actually diagnosed.

One participant is Jason Burke, a math professor at MSU Denver, who said he lives with a more aggressive version of “red-green” color blindness.

“I think the one way you see things as a colorblind person is that the colors are still there, but you realize it’s like a different shade to what the normal person is seeing,” said Burke.

Red-green affects 98% of those diagnosed with color vision deficiencies, according to EnChroma. Typically mild, that form of colorblindness affects people differently.

As he prepared to try the glasses, Burke said, “after 60 years of being colorblind, you’re thinking you put these on and what’s it gonna be like. I don’t know if it’s going to be more dramatic or whatever, but I just have no idea, you know … I think it’s going to be different.”

Well, it certainly was different, he said after putting them on.

“Everything is more vibrant,” said Burke, looking at his wife’s green eyes, adding he thought for the longest time her eyes were brown.

All six participants put their glasses on at the same time facing three-dimensional art featuring the primary colors.

MSU Denver journalism student Alex Petrich, who also lives with red-green colorblindness, said it was a “relief” putting on the colorblind glasses.

“There’s something greener, when I take them off, everything has something a bit more like a green hue,” he said.

Living with colorblindness, Petrich said, is “one of those things you’ll learn to live with and not let it affect your life as much.

“But this especially for somebody who’s working in a visual medium with photojournalism and video journalism, this helps a lot because as a journalist, you’re always searching for the natural image. You’re going to capture life as it exists.”

It took two months for MSU Denver and EnChroma to create its partnership, according to MSU Denver Director and Curator at the Center for Visual Arts Cecily Cullen.

“I just loved watching their faces and the shock that sort of came over them as we’re looking at the colors and seeing them for the first time and really wondering what they are seeing,” she said.

Moving forward, the Center For Visual Arts plans to have colorblind glasses available for anyone to check out in the art exhibit.

Not only is this an effort to aid those attending MSU Denver, but the partnership with EnChroma is also a “community effort,” Cullen said, adding “I’m sure people who are colorblind learn to differentiate in different ways.”