[stylist] Blindness and photography

[Elizabeth Sammons]

Colleagues,

Well, I am glad that the subject of blindness and photography, or as I might
call it blindness versus photography, is getting a lot of reaction. Folks
here do not know me, but perhaps you will trust me that in general, I am
very far from being a ney sayer both in my personal life and in my career.
As I dig into my own thoughts, here's what is eating at me when I consider
the subject of blind camera people and photographs. Photography, I think you
will agree with me, is by its very essence a matter of vision and view.
Blindness by its essence is the matter of having lost or never having had
that very vision or view. This is why it still seems to me a mockery to try
to combine the two, water and oil. And even if the effort is made, I don't
get the point or the happiness of doing something along this line. 

I am appreciative of some of the reasoning raised such as wanting to leave a
visual record to one's children, wanting to see if one can simply capture a
subject in the frame, etc.. But even in the best scenario, say, the subject
is captured successfully, I am reminded of a news subject that I saw while
living in Russia about a young man who was blind and who fried his own
potatoes for dinner. So what? So does everybody else. So what's the
newsworthiness in that? Similarly I would say that there is nothing
praiseworthy in someone who is blind taking a picture beyond perhaps some
desire to try a new thing, since it is a thing that anybody else can do.
Note, I am not talking here about the artistry of the photo... that is a
completely different matter which I addressed earlier.

Anyhow, here's to the diversity of opinion such groups support, and thanks
for making me think on this issue a bit more deeply than prior to this
discussion.


Sincerely,
Elizabeth