what you think about photography made by blind people

It sounds like exploitation, but it is more likely a stupid waste of time and money.

Why not take the money being used/wasted on blind photography and teach or make available sound recording, editing and playback or sculpture or writing or the creation of scents or my goodness gracious anything that sits within their capabilities to produce and appreciate?

How do the blind critique their photographic work or what is their measure of success?


Pardon my insensitivity, but this just seems absurd.

But as others have said, but not backed up in a way that sways me, I'm not blind so what do I know?

I wouldn't rule it out. Many people who are legally "blind" have some residual vision, and I would acknowledge that there could be a conceptual element of photography by the blind that could be interesting.

Enough discussion in the abstract, though. Where is the work? That would be more interesting to discuss than the possibility of the work.

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Just went back to the site mentioned in the first post. Most of it isn't too interesting, but I like the photograph by John Clarke. He is described as having "poor vision"--so not completely blind--and his photograph is formally interesting and reveals something about his experience.

I know there are other blind photographers, so I'm sure if one looks, there is probably something worth thinking about out there.

David as posted at the start of the thread a page or 2 back now
http://www.rvib.org.au/eventscal/4s...ightLayout.html.


EDIT: Ahh I see you beat me to finding it

I accept and agree that those with bad eyesight can benefit by photography. As dipicted at the linked page, the worse the sight so went the images.

TPPhotog said:

[...] but can you honestly tell me that someone who doesn't have the ability to decide what to have for breakfast can at the same time vote in an election or consent to sex? [...]

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Stop it! My sides hurt!

That self portrait "My Shadow" was worth the link alone. It beat's Friedlander's portrait of Nina Sarkowski into first place in my pantheon of photographs about photographs.

Photography is about more than objects of reverent contemplation, just as writing is about more than sonnets and shopping lists. The non-standard framing in those blind people's shots is precisely the point. The mundane nature of their concerns is precisely the point. It's an outsider's view of The View - why should we expect it to stick to the rules?

I am from Bosnia, and I am war veteran, was wounded and now I am invalid, without possibility to completely control my right hand and fist. I have lost more than 70% of mine right hand function. So I am talking from the stand of person with disability. And talking from that point, I would say that anyone who would invite me to play guitar in hers(his) band, I would call that person insane. That simply would not work. And I think same to blind person photography. For me that sounds like bad joke and like making joke with blind persons. It is insult for blind persons.

P. S. I am European, so I don't have to be "politicaly sorrect"...

Regards.

To be more clear. Someone without both hands can be runner, even football(socker) player, but that person can not be handball or voyelball or basketball player...

No lawyers necessary

blansky said:

BUT blind photography to me sounds too much like a gimmick that someone with an agenda is trying to pass off.

I won't sue you if you don't sue me.

MIchael

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Michael,
You misunderstand my ire. I am not being sensitive to blind people, I am speaking out about the need to avoid prejudgement.

"Blind Photography," as a concept, is at least interesting. Photography by blind people may or may not be interesting. Speak to the work, not to any fixation on the visual accuity of the artist. Look..., a bad piece of art is a bad piece of art. Pointing a camera in front of you with no idea of what other people will see when they look at the photo sounds like a bad idea, and many of the photos on that site are just plain boring. Individuals with cameras should not all have their work on websites, but this is true of sighted photographers as well as vision-impaired photographers. People who play the "newest thing" game with photographs by blind people are just idiots and shucksters and should be avoided at all costs.

By the way, I am using "vison-impaired" not because it is more politically correct, but because, in the case of most of the good work that I have seen from "blind photographers" the artist could see, but not like you can or I can. They were legally blind. Some of this work, at its best, has been hauntingly beautiful. The fact that the photographer was impaired was not revealed in one case until I had already fallen in love with the work.

To me it's very simple. Speak to the work, not to the artists' advantages or disabilities. That way, we can say something is bad when it is, and praise it when it's good, without the baggage of political correctness or, much worse, pity.

I'll try to retrace my steps to the work I spoke of and post a link, if it's still available. It was part of a show I saw some years ago though, so it may be unreachable. Until then, check this
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2005/02/27/PKG5QBEBB01.DTL&o=2
The obviously dismissive attitude in this thread still bothers me, especially when it speaks of what people should not do. Ah, but that's what the ignore button is here for, isn't it?

Wait! Don't push it on my post! Noooooo! I'm not always ranting, honest!

Whitey

haris said:

P. S. I am European, so I don't have to be "politicaly sorrect"...

Regards.

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got room for one more over there?

Well, Beethoven was deaf and still composed music. But, how many deaf composers are here today and was in history of music. And he become deaf at late ages, even he wasn't born deaf and composed deaf all his life, and he composed by imagination and "listening" music in his head, even with mathematical rules of music, by "remembering" of sounds he heard and knew before he become deaf. Why photography is different? Even if photographer can "previsualize" image in his(hers) head, how that photographer can turn camera onto subject, compose, determine exposition, etc... if he(she) can not see the subject?

To be photographer one has to be able to repeadately make photographs of simillar artistic and technical quality. And that quality has to be of, lower or higher but, acceptable level to wide audience which looks at those photographs. If blind person can do that that person can be and is photograppher. If can not, then sorry, but...

At the end, if someone just point camera at many directions and make thousands(millions) of photographs, I am shure that this person will sooner or later "caught" scene which will turn to be good photograph, just by chance and by "law of great numbers(quantity will born quality)". But is that photography? And will that person be able to repeadetly make photographs like that succesful one? If not, is that photography?

mark said:

got room for one more over there?

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Allways, but, wouldn't be better if you can fight (doesn't have to be violent way, but if it has to be...) the position there where you live, so that you don't have to come here, Mark

Whiteymorange said:

I'll try to retrace my steps to the work I spoke of and post a link, if it's still available. It was part of a show I saw some years ago though, so it may be unreachable. Until then, check this
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2005/02/27/PKG5QBEBB01.DTL&o=2
The obviously dismissive attitude in this thread still bothers me, especially when it speaks of what people should not do. Ah, but that's what the ignore button is here for, isn't it?

Wait! Don't push it on my post! Noooooo! I'm not always ranting, honest!

Whitey

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Hey Whitey, I went to the link and read this:

"It wasn't until after Pete Eckert went blind that he really started to see things. "

and then I see what Pete Eckert see after he went blind and I discover that if I unfocuse my camera I can see what he see but still I preserve my vision

(sorry if I miss the subject, remember, english is not my mother tongue)

I can't believe we are even discussing this. Geez. Go out and take some pictures eh.

haris said:

Well, Beethoven was deaf and still composed music. But, how many deaf composers are here today and was in history of music. And he become deaf at late ages, even he wasn't born deaf and composed deaf all his life, and he composed by imagination and "listening" music in his head, even with mathematical rules of music, by "remembering" of sounds he heard and knew before he become deaf. Why photography is different? Even if photographer can "previsualize" image in his(hers) head, how that photographer can turn camera onto subject, compose, determine exposition, etc... if he(she) can not see the subject?

snip...

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But it is obvious that he was deaf when he wrote the 9th symphony, and that he tried to make it loud enough that even he could hear it!

But a composer is the wrong comparison here. Think performing musician instead. AFAIK there is only one, and she's a percussionist (and a d*mn good one!).