Blind Photograpy

After reading my regular RSS aggregator I stumbled upon this article posted by Wired magazine. When I saw this I moved to say the least.

Blind photography is something I had not even heard of until this morning, and it really does put things into perspective (no pun intended). The story talks about a photographer, Alex Dejong, who suffered a brain tumor three years ago causing him to loose his sight in both eyes.

Since that time he has found new and innovate ways to continue taking pictures. He’s not completely blind, he can see light and dark and basic shapes but even then you would not expect the type of photography that he produces.

Alex uses a variety of different techniques to get his pictures, strangely enough, part of it comes from the iPhone 3G S and it’s voice over functions but even more standard software packages are being put to use thanks to the advent of Voice Over technology which reads everything on the screen back to the user.

Of course the article does not solely focus on his work, but it also focuses on two others. Every single one of them producing fantastic and incredible photography.

The site, www.BlindPhotographers.org is filled with simply incredible pictures. It’s hard to believe that these people have any vision impairment whatsoever. I would of course love to put a few pictures in this blog post but licensing and legal issues currently prevent me from doing so.

At the start of this article I said that I was moved just reading it, but it really does become moving when you see people managing to live their dream and producing spectacular pictures when others wouldn’t think it possible. It’s not like these pictures have to be taken with a pinch of salt either. They need no handicap, and you don’t need to use the expression “Taking into account…”

The pictures themselves are truly amazing, and I would encourage everyone to view www.BlindPhotographers.org and of course read the Wired Article