I had a Career Dev class today with John Nordell and his lecture touched me and inspired an idea of another personal project. Lately, I've been bombarded with ideas that I want to do while I have all these resources at my fingertips. Despite the lack of confidence at times, I know that by doing, my technique can only continue to get better.
Today he talked about the idea of seeing, that we don't always have to see only through our eyes. Being in the moment and truly seeing is by using all of one's senses. He featured a book of images created by blind student photographers which literally and figuratively illustrated this reality. As an observer of the world, the photographer should use her senses to her advantage in order to visually translate whatever she wants to say successfully. He showed us this video of a woman who lost her sight because of a disease and yet continued to pursue photography with a passion. She talked about how she continues to function through memory and imagination in order to do her work (with the help of her husband, of course). I enjoyed looking at her photographs which were surreal images of her dog posing beside miniature models of famous buildings. What was interesting to me was her process. She would place her ear near the viewfinder and listen to the camera focusing. Instead of using her eyes to guide her to scenes that are visually interesting, she'd use her hearing instead. It's amazing how people can develop new ways of being perceptive when they need to.
I want to photograph blind photographers around the U.S. seeing the world. I want to focus on the process, not so much the images that they produce but more of the way to find things that catch their attention. I might be an interesting journey for me and I'm sure to learn a lot from them. Another idea that might be cool is to take portraits of these people... telling their personal stories of seeing with everything BUT the eyes.
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Today he talked about the idea of seeing, that we don't always have to see only through our eyes. Being in the moment and truly seeing is by using all of one's senses. He featured a book of images created by blind student photographers which literally and figuratively illustrated this reality. As an observer of the world, the photographer should use her senses to her advantage in order to visually translate whatever she wants to say successfully. He showed us this video of a woman who lost her sight because of a disease and yet continued to pursue photography with a passion. She talked about how she continues to function through memory and imagination in order to do her work (with the help of her husband, of course). I enjoyed looking at her photographs which were surreal images of her dog posing beside miniature models of famous buildings. What was interesting to me was her process. She would place her ear near the viewfinder and listen to the camera focusing. Instead of using her eyes to guide her to scenes that are visually interesting, she'd use her hearing instead. It's amazing how people can develop new ways of being perceptive when they need to.
I want to photograph blind photographers around the U.S. seeing the world. I want to focus on the process, not so much the images that they produce but more of the way to find things that catch their attention. I might be an interesting journey for me and I'm sure to learn a lot from them. Another idea that might be cool is to take portraits of these people... telling their personal stories of seeing with everything BUT the eyes.
