We have begun a project, Seeing My Images, on our flickr group, to address, as a community, this issue of how blind photographers make their images. It is not as easy a question to answer as one might think.

We are all unique in the way we use our camera. We vary in our experience, equipment, interest and goals. Some of us are professionals and others hobbyists, some are more artistic and some less so, some shoot daily and some sporadically, some shoot for an audience and some for themselves. These define, in part, how we approach the camera. Yet we all share something in common. We each face challenges related to our eyesight, challenges that affect our image-making process. Let’s take this opportunity to explore how we approach photography. Possibly, we will adapt our own processes as we learn the details of how others make images. If not, we can still satisfy our curiosity about how our vision affects our images.

Each member of the group, including me, who wished to participate is starting their own discussion thread in the Blind Photographer forum. Each thread allows for a deeper discussion of each individual’s process.

This project gives us a great opportunity to learn from each other. Three of us have already begun the process. I have already begun peppering the other two with questions. They have more experience and knowledge that I do, so their process in more organized, more technical and better thoiught out thatn mine.

Besides learning from each other, there is a wider community who will benefit. Students and researchers, particularly in photographer, have frequented surveyed members of Blind Photogrpahy about the interaction between our physical vision and photographic one. I am currently participate in a project where I am to make and discuss a self-portriat. If successful, perhaps this will evolve into something more public, perhaps a website or a book, so the wider community we all belong to can ponder issues of vision and sight.

Tags: blind, blind photographers, photography links, process, vision

This entry was posted on December 4, 2008 at 12:09 pm and is filed under blind photographers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.