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Blind people may want to take photographs for many reasons, and with the technology now available, there has never been a better time to pick up a camera.
This page features projects that support blind and visually impaired photographers, examples of the work of many of these photographers, and techniques for presenting images so that blind and other disabled people may get access to the finished images.
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a blind flaneur » Curiosity & The Blind Photographer - the changing climate around blindness, starting from the era when a photographer would take covert photographs of blind people to the social networking age where blind people generate content.
Aperture - "A teenage boy who suffers from acute blindness has a dream of becoming a photographer. He travels through the days taking photos and trying to fit in with normal society until he meets a girl who changes his perspective forever. Short film. There is some dialogue eventually!
Armed with a camera, the blind capture their world - the organisations Beijing One Plus One Cultural Exchange Center and PhotoVoice UK ran photography workshops in Beijing in May 2009.. In collaboration with China Vision, a UK charity, the exhibition, " Sights Unseen" ran at the end of May 2009 in Beijing.
Art Beyond Sight - a one stop resource for bringing art and culture to people with visual impairments. The Network includes interdisciplinary discussion groups and links to mailing lists and accessible arts education. There is also a listing of useful equipment and contacts. Art Beyond Sight YouTube Channel.
ArtSlant - contemporary arts network for New York, including artists' profiles and a range of communities.
BBC NEWS - Video: Photo exhibition for the blind - in Ukraine - each item has a tactile version and audio description.
BBC Radio 4 - In Touch, 25th July 2006 - transcript and audio include an item on photography for blind people. John Welsman and Ken Keen explain their differing reasons for taking photographs and how they achieve their results. The broadcast is in Real Audio.
Beautifully Blind ~ I See With My Heart - blog by two sisters, one sighted, the other blind. Robin, the blind sister, has started to get into photography.
RSS Feed
Best of Blind Photographers - blog giving news and photos from the Blind Photographers' Flickr Group.
Atom Feed
RSS Feed. Also visit
The Blind Photographers Blog though at the moment, you may find that the domain for this has been temporarily disabled (July 2011).
RSS Feed.
Beyond Sight - Joe Clawges uses the camera to see what his eyes cannot. Here there are photo galleries and an introduction to Joe's photography.
Birmingham art museum becomes touching experience for blind - Birmingham, Alabama, is hosting an exhibition of tactile reproductions and sculpture in its continuing efforts to make art accessible to blind people.
Blind Artists' Society - for artists with impaired vision or those who care for VI people.
Blind at the Museum - this event (conference and exhibits) in California in 2005 tried to re-frame ideas about access to visual art. KQED Radio 'Forum' program on this (mp3 audio)
Blind But In Focus - video featuring several skilled blind photographers.
Blind people taking pictures in Bolivia - start of a discussion thread.
Blind Photographers - video in which several blind photographers describe how they work.
Blind photographers exposed at Jerusalem exhibit
[Video] Blind Photography - giving sight to the blind - photography course in Israel.
Blind photography: Making impossible possible - Samara Currimbhoy explores photography, film, advertising, animation and special effects. Page has embedded video. Photography, blind people and deaf people in India.
Blind Photography Listmania list by Timothy O'Brien
Blind Sight - Express India - students at Victoria Memorial School for the Blind, Mumbai, exhibit their photography.
Blind With Camera - "Empowering the Visually Impaired through the Art of Photography" - a photography project in Mumbai, India, founded by Partho Bhowmick. The site includes the philosophy of the project, videos, articles and the examples of the work of participants.
Blind With Camera RSS feed Also visit
A Visual Journey of my Mind's Eye
The video,
A Blinding Clarity for Photography, shows students from the project, including Kanchan Pamnani, a blind solicitor. Blind With Camera is supported by the Beyond Sight Foundation.
Blind with Camera School of Photography - background reading materials,, tutorials for beginners and more advanced photographers, guidance for sighted people wishing to train visually impaired people in photography. There is a discussion board and a photo blog where photographers can upload their pictures for comment.
'Blind/Sight: Conversations with the Visually Impaired' exhibition: unexpected views of the world - at the Phillips eye Institute, Minneapolis, Jan 2009. Photographs by documentary photographer Billy Howard following conversations with visually impaired people about how they see the world.
Blind Sided Facebook Group started by Kerry Pringle of the London Blind-Sided Gallery Project.
BlindArt is a UK charity that encourages visually impaired people to participate in the visual arts.. Exhibitions include "Sense and Sensuality", hinting at the organisation's multi-sensory approach. To keep up with artists and events, join the BlindArt Forums
Camera Selector - search for a camera that matches your requirements.
Cardiff University showcases photography by visually impaired - these images originate in the 'Sight of Emotion' project in London and Mexico City. Organised by PhotoVoice
[Video] CNN's Paula Hancocks meets Israel's blind photographers, challenging perceptions that only the sighted can take a good photo.
Color Rules of Thumb - a useful exploration of the effects of colour in various contexts.
[Video] Dark Light: The Art of Blind Photographers - HBO documentary.
Disability Arts Online - at the forefront of the disability arts evolution - This UK site is aimed primarily at deaf and disabled people, but it is wide-ranging, and features diverse artists and forms, including photography.
Dog's Eye View Blog includes some personal notes on blind photography. Visit The Confusion, The Photography Questions, and A Physicist or a Photographer?
Dominique Shaw: Artist opens photography up to the blind - Dominique Shaw worked with a totally blind person to come up with ways of capturing images that can be turned into tactile print. . She says, "My work explores the boundaries between the visually impaired and the sighted. It examines the notions of vision and the visual and opens up a dialogue around sight and non-sight, perception, the image and the imagination." Touch-based photography experiment - Dominique Shaw, a photography graduate, worked with blind Adam Tuck to produce tactile images of photographs that are meaningful to someone who has never had sight.
Eco on blindness and the arts - based Leicester, UK. The site includes links to organisations and study materials, galleries and a calendar of events.
Facing Diversity Conference: Leveling the Field in Photographic Arts - conference in Philadelphia in March 2010. Topics planned include photography by teens, working class people, native people and blind people.
Freeze frame: See how the blind see - first blind photography exhibition in India shows the abstract world seen by blind people that might puzzle those with sight.
From one form of “shooting” to another - legally blind photographer Mina describes the beginning phase.
HDR | High Dynamic Range - Trey Ratcliff, who is blind in one eye, uses this technique, which involves several shots of the same subject at different aperture and shutter speeds. This may give the images more depth than you get from a single shot.
Inspirational Blind Photographers and their Portfolios - honourable mentions for several well-known, and some less well-known, blind photographers.
Learning photography from my "blind" companion - how a sighted and a blind person collaborated to explore exhibits in museums, benefiting both.
Live Life Trailer - film about a (fictional) Chinese blind photographer.
Local Eyes, Sydney, supported by the United Way organisation, is a project where 40 or so visually impaired people were given a digital camera and mentoring support.
Local photographer goes abroad - Meg Majors is to document the lives of deaf-blind students in Ghana with photography.
Loss of eyesight doesn't hinder artists contributing to gallery - the "Creative Vision" exhibition at Tillie Lewis Theater, Stockton, Ca, Feb to Mar, 2009, featured several well-known blind photographers. More on the exhibitors
Marcia Smilack - reflectionist - synaesthesia and photography - she often knows when to take a photograph when she has one of her 'synaesthetic moments'. Maybe some blind photographers have this ability?
'Moments the Blind Can See' Exhibition Gives Window into the World of the Blind | Landmark Education News Blog - photos taken by blind people in Israel and enhanced by graphic designers working on what was in the photographers' minds at the times the photos were taken.
National Arts Disability Center (USA) - "Promoting the Full Inclusion of Artists and Audiences with Disabilities into all Facets of the Arts Community" - many resources, including grants and web directories. They also have a Facebook page
National Exhibits of Blind Artists (NEBA) - Philadelphia-based organisation that promotes the interests of blind artists. Exhibitions and awards.
Night Photography Without Flash - RWS Photo Blog - Dark Photography, invented by New York University's Dilip Krishnan and Rob Fergus, is a technique for merging an infra-red image with an ultra-violet one to produce a clear image with true colour without flash. Could this be of use to those with night blindness, or anyone who wants to see in the dark?
Obscura - video featuring Kurt Weston, Bruce Hall and Pete Eckert speaking for themselves. Produced by Damon Stea
Open-source camera may help reinvent digital photography - maybe a developer could include accessibility software with such a camera? More info on petapixel
Painting with Light - Fred Hatt explains how he makes images with various lighting techniques. He explains briefly photograms and light paintings.
Partho Bhowmick teaches photography for the blind - at a workshop in Mumbai, blind participants use point-and-shoot 35mm or SLR cameras.
Passionate Focus 2007: Art exhibit by legally blind - the exhibition ran in Chicago in September, 2007. One of the exhibitors is Charlie Grover, a photographer with central vision loss. More details at Guild for the Blind.
Photographers with disabilities - this UK group offers meetings and studio days, forum, exhibitions in Bristol, UK. Hopes to raise funds for a permanent, accessible studio in Bristol and eventually other parts of the UK.
Photography for the Non-Visual - Wish Me Luck! - a different take on non-visual. Maura Anderson does not have an eye problem, but she can't conjure up mental images, even in dreams.
Photo Talk Radio - 6/23/2007 - includes visual art by visually impaired photographers Bruce Hall and Pete Eckert.
Photographs Described for Blind and Partially Sighted Visitors at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The Museum regularly holds talks and study days for visually impaired people.
Photography: A New Angle on Seeing - article about a group of visually impaired photographers in Israel. The article explains what motivates the group, and some of the techniques they use.
PhotographyBLOG - Photography News, Reviews, Articles, Gallery, Forums, Film and Digital. Includes information relevant to the UK as well as North America.
RSS feed
Photography for the Visually Impaired - an account of a course provided by York University in the early 1990s. From the British Journal of Visual Impairment. Inaccessible PDF. Not sure if this is still available.
Photos with a light technique - sight-impaired artists work with exposures. Some insight into the way a group of New York blind photographers produced their work.
Photovoice is an organisation that encourages participatory photography. Training workshops in London
PhotoVoice: Photography by blind people - Audio slideshow: - BBC page that illustrates the kinds of photos you can expect at the PhotoVoice Exhibition in London, 19th-23rd January, 2010.
Poor vision shooter - PhotoCamel Forum discussion
Professor teaching blind people how to take pictures - The Korean Herald - Yang Jong-hoon has taught blind people photography for 21 years. He has now written a book, being published in Braille, on the subject. Also read Class proves that seeing is believing, about one of the class participants, Kim Gyeong-shik.
Proof, 1991, Australia, 90 min., Director: Jocelyn Moorhouse, Drama - a film about a blind photographer. Love triangle involving a blind photographer. Why would a blind man take photographs? More info
Proofing with portable DVD - David Tejadaa explains his method of seeing a larger image of what comes into the camera.
Researchmonkeys' Blog - various items about visual impairment and the arts are included.
RSS Feed
Revealed - photography for visually impaired people « Tales of One City (Edinburgh City Libraries Blog) - following the Revealed Exhibition, some recommendations for further reading on visually impaired photographers. The event was also covered by Edinburgh Evening News It will run from Tuesday, 22nd September until Tuesday, 20th October 2009 at RNIB Scotland, 12/14 Hillside Crescent, Edinburgh. Press release
Seeing Beyond Sight: Photographs by Blind Teenagers - a project and a book by Tony Deifell. KQED (SF) Radio discussion, also available as an mp3 download. Also visit Lighting the Way, a Video: founder describes the project and the seeingbeyondsight YouTube Channel. Look out for the film, too. This book is available to Bookshire members
Seeing Beyond Sight Challenge - anyone can try it. See with more than your eyes....
Seeing life through the eyes of the visually challenged - Alfonso Ayew led a photography project for blind people in the Quad Cities.
Seeing My Images: The Process Project - members of the Flickr Blind Photographers Group look at the interaction between their visual impairments and the way they make photographs.
Seeing with Photography Collective based in New York City, the Collective includes blind, partially sighted and fully sighted people. The people behind the "Shooting Blind" exhibition. Lifting the Blindfold is a video featuring the voices of members. See also the box portrait series - - Using just a cardboard box and crude lens, members of the Seeing With Photography Collective create anti-crisp portraits reduced to essential shapes by the primitive, soft focus.There is also a book, Shooting Blind, detailed under Shooting Blind below. The film Blind Faith (2007) contains first-hand accounts of how members carry out their work. WINK Magazine, Issue 2 has an article entitled "In the Absence of Light", featuring the Seeing with Photography Collective. Readers using assistive technology might find this Flash presentation impossible to use.
Sensory Photography - PhotoVoice - why and how do blind people take photographs?
Shared Visions, an exhibit at the Southern California College of Optometry, Fullerton. The free exhibit represented 34 blind painters and photographers. This is a related Audio Slide Show
Shooting the iPhone - it seems that the current iPhone 3GS, including the camera, is accessible to blind people.
Sight Unseen - claimed to be the first major museum exhibition of blind photography, Sight unseen ran from May 2nd to August 29th, 2009 at California Museum of Photography, Riverside. Featured photographers included many well-known names, such as Alice Wingwall and Evgen Bavcar.
Sights Unseen: Exhibition of Photographic Works by Visually Impaired People from China, Britain and Mexico Beijing, May 2009. . Read review. Audio description and tactile versions of the photographs were provided.
Soho Gallery, New York - established by a group of New York press photographers, this gallery hosts a wide range of events, including the recent Seeing With Photography Collective exhibition. Unfortunately the gallery has put up a lot of its information in graphical format, which is useless to blind people and search engines alike.
StillImage - a company in Bristol that aims to make the world a better place through photography, including the provision of tactile displays for blind people in public venues.
Tao of Digital Photography Blog: Learning to See from the Blind - The author claims that being a blind photographer is not so different from being a sighted one. In both cases, we're dealing with more than just recording what meets the eye.
Tessera showcases intelligent face-tracking technologies for phone cameras - features such as detection of night-time scenes, background lighting and smiling faces seem set fair to give us many automatic settings on a mobile phone.
The camera's eye - photography students at Beit Ha'iver (Center for the Blind) in Herzliya, Israel, get some stunning results.
The Colorblind Photographer - includes photographs, commentary and some tricks of the trade.
Tommaso and the Blind Photographer, a novel by Gesualdo Bufalino - Tomasso is a janitor in a boring apartment block in Sicily. Bartolomeo, his lone companion, is a blind photographer who is paid to take pictures of the rich and famous in naked poses. They reflect on the peculiar action of the world around them. I'm not sure this is an idea for your next project!
Touching art: Special Portsmouth exhibit designed for blind, low-vision people - New Hampshire Art Association hosted an exhibition in April 2009 where visitors were encouraged to touch the art.
Turn Off Autofocus - Do it Yourself! - Photography Bay | Digital Camera Reviews, News and Resources - sometimes the autofocus can let you down at the vital moment. Chris Gampat explores a technique to use without autofocus.
Visually impaired photographers - links and comments on Metafilter.
Visually Impaired Photography - Common Interest page on Facebook
Alan Babbitt Fine Art Photography - abstracts, humor, street photography, quirky, Parkinsonís tremor-enhanced photography. Fine art prints for sale, images for license. Alan Babbit is legally blind and has Parkinson's Disease
Working artist: Tremor gives photographer license to be unfocused
[mp3 audio] 7 Photography Questions Podcast #46 Abstract Photography - Part 1 - Alan Babbit
Podcast Feed
Show Notes
LAS VEGAS - Un-still Photography - some of these photos were in the exhibit in Fairfax, California.
PHOTO BLEND-O - Symmetry, Synthesis, and Serendipity. Some of these photos were included in the exhibit in Fairfax, California.
Albert Watson is a Scottish photographer who has achieved fame through fashion, magazine and celebrity photography. His work appears in many galleries, and he has won top prizes for his photographs. He happens to be blind in one eye.
Alex De Jong is a professional photographer who lost his sight in 2006. At first this seemed disastrous for him, but he has found ways of carrying on with his work.
Alice Wingwall is a photographer and sculptor with a passion for photographing buildings. With the aid of her husband and colleagues and auto-focus cameras, her retinitis pigmentosa has not prevented her from taking photographs.
Blind Snapper's Animal Magic - Alison Bartlett has hearing that's sensitive enough to track the wildlife she photographs. Her photos are going into an exhibition in Hampshire, UK.
RSS Feed
RSS FeedShe wants to show people not only what she sees, but how she sees it. She has lived in California, France and Africa, has been a punk rock photographer, and has taken part in several high-profile exhibitions.
Blind Photographer Beats the Odds - Barry Wood has been legally blind for 3 years, and, no, he didn't want to train to be a telephonist, thanks. He has published photographs, though.
Belinda lives in Rochester, NY. She has a form of macular degeneration. She writes with great facility about the experience of losing vision rapidly, and the part that photography has played in this.
Persistence Of Vision; Partially Blind Photographer Stays Focused - Bob Weinberg was a photographer for 30 years before a retinal disease struck him. But, as this article shows, he has re-learned the skills that enable him to take and develop photographs.
Bob has central vision loss, and uses various workarounds in his photography.
RSS FeedBrian Higgins - video, California photographer, has lost most of his vision to retinitis pigmentosa, and still is a photographer. he also teaches people to use technology. This video is in MP4 format.
He might not make a big thing about it himself, but Bruce is legally blind and takes some stunningly perceptive images. Note in particular his underwater work and photos of autistic children.
Camera sees what photographer cannot - Chris Balthrop can see detail in his photos he cannot see at the time they were taken.
Photobird.com - "goldfinch" photo in April 2009 Photo Contest
Many more references to Chris's work to come, I suspect.
Charles started into photography while serving with the American Air Force. Later, he had a variety of jobs, and more recently has developed macular degeneration with its typical central vision loss. However, he enjoyes macro photography.
Cindy Paulding is a legally blind photographer from Lexington, Kentucky.
Omigosh - a legally blind photographer takes a look at life. Here, there are galleries of Cindy's work and something of her life story.
A Whole New World - YouTube video on Cindy Paulding.
Craig Royal is a fine art photographer based in St Petersberg, Florida. Craig's subjects include natural objects, architecture and people. His abstract images are stunning and beautiful.
Evgen Bavcar, Slovenian blind photographer, was the subject of a TV documentary in about 2001. The link takes you to a page with a
Quicktime movie of his exhibition. Please also refer to
Malneirophrenic Murmurings of a Neuromantic - Evgen Bavcar, blind Slovenian photographer and
Light My Life
Evgen Bavcar: The Blind Photographer « Documentary Shooters
The Blind Photographer by Benjamin Mayer-Foulkes
Documenting downtown: Photographer sees Andover through his own lens - Frank LaVallo has been legally blind since 1977, and has been taking photos of Andover, Mass. that show the changes in the town.
Gary is almost completely blind. He trained with the PhotoVoice charity in London, then shot to wider fame by appearing in an advert for the Nokia N8 phone.
This legally blind photographer and disability advocate is a pioneer of blind photography.
Sadly, I have to report that this great Mexican photographer died recently (2010). He believed that photography was something that involved all our senses, not simply sight.
A retrospective Gerardo Nigenda
Under the Mexican Smog: A really good interview - the author met Gerardo Nigenda as his exhibition opened in Mexico City, March, 2009.
[mp3] Radio Interview with Gerardo Nigenda from ARTSblock
New Orleans jazz pianist and blind photographer.
Holleen Lawrence and Becca Hodges are a mother daughter team who take mainly photos of people. Holleen is blind.
Local photographer captures experiences, moments at Cummer Museum - the museum, in Jacksonville, Florida, has hosted several community events, including 'Women of Vision', featuring blind women photographers.
InsightDiscover's Myspace Page - photographers with visual impairments. Also visit her YouTube Video Playlist
Flickr: jason.decamillis' Photostream on Flickr
Photographer Flo Fox on Her Appearance in 'Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work' -- New York Magazine - Joan Rivers happened to deliver a hot meal to Flo Fox, who has multiple sclerosis. Things took off from there....
Ken, based in Bucks, S. England, uses mechanical cameras and mechanical techniques to judge what is going to be in his photographs.
After diagnoses of full-blown AIDS and CMV Retinitis, Kurt's life as a fashion photographer, and life itself, seemed to be over. But new drug therapies saved his life, and he wasn't done yet as a photographer either......
Laura is a legally blind photographer who specialises in animal and nature work. She is a physics graduate and lives in Kansas.
Photography by a blind old man - Lloyd Gregory explains how he carries on with photography while managing the difficulties of macular degeneration.
The loss of an eye has not stopped Lorraine being a commercial and artistic photographer.
Melvin Morales started taking photographs with a Polaroid camera in childhood. After retiring disabled from the armed forces, he has taken up photography again.
Photographer Found Abstract Forms in Urban Locales - a tribute to Michael Richard, rock musician and photographer, who was legally blind in later life.
Visual Inspiration - Michael Walsh, legally blind photographer in Avon, MA, USA, had an exhibition in the local library in March, 2008. Every picture tells a story.
Nicholas has always been legally blind, and once he became intrigued by photography, he decided to offer the world a blind perspective on things that sighted people may overlook.
A Blind Perspective Nicholas Birchak's own site, "where the sighted world can see what they are missing"
Blind Eye Photography - blog by "Blondezee" (Nora K. Devene). Blog RSS Feed. She also has a photo site where photos can be viewed or purchased - Photos by Nora K. Devane
Passionate Focus 2010 - Nora Devne won first prize at this event.
Belfast-born Mr Taylor has taken over 1000 images of his garden shed with a digital camera. An exhibition of some of them is appearing at the RNIB in Edinburgh.
Otto Lizel, a photographer who went blind, and has been an inspiration to other blind photographers. His legacy is several long-lived books, including Photo Composition.
Patricia Youngquist - Impressionist Pinhole Photographer - she is legally blind. She photographs things the way she sees them through a camera she built herself. Patricia does not try to replicate 'sighted' photography.
Humor & Art: Blind Photographer Building Career Off Laughs - a feature on blind Oakland photographer Pedro Hidalgo.
Interview with Pete Eckert | RAW
Ralph Baker, (refusing to be) Blind Photographer - New York street photographer has developed severe retinal problems, but that doesn't stop him earning a living.
Blind Photographer Has No Difficulty - he chooses what to photograph by sound.
Richard Favinger, Jr. has nystagmus (involuntary movements of the eyes), and is legally blind. He is also a black belt in judo and teaches judo at the Pottstown Judo Club, Pottstown, Pa
RSS Feed Robert Wright, who is legally blind and does publicity work in the field of technology addressing the barriers that disabled people face.
Color-blind lensman shares wonders of the wild - Romy Ocon has a life-long colour deficiency, but tells of how he gets it right when taking photographs. From Luzon Inquirer, Philippines.
Visually impaired photographer works to open exhibit - Selman Devecioğlu hoped to display his photos for Disability Week in May 2007 in Turkey.
Sam Smith Art photos concentrate on escaping the humdrum world, and humour. He is visually impaired. He has a mobile exhibition in Southern California.
Portland, Oregon based legally blind photographer and versatile artist, she presents rich imagery on these sites.
The launching pad into the world of Sandra Miller Portland Oregon Glass artisan and photographer
Graffiti Gallery - Portfolio by photographer Sandra Miller ..... Inspired by Life!
Blind Man Walking - Simon has macular degeneration at age 37, and has decided to make the most of his photography
Blind photographer takes aim at life - Sue McLeod is a blind photographer in Sydney Australia. This article looks at her work, the Local Eyes Project and an exhibition in March 2008.
Focusing on the Picture - how would Susan Povinelli be able to conduct a photography class when she's blind? She lets us in on the secrets.
Robbed of most of her sight by glaucoma, macular degeneration and corneal oedema, Tara is also a successful professional photographer and now a national competition winner in Canada.
Terry Hammon uses (or did use) a manually-focused Minolta camera. She has learned to be sharply observant by concentrating on detail.
Having had his lenses removed, Tim Doucette is visually impaired, but can see further into the ultra-violet than most of us. He is a nationally recognised space photographer in Canada.
Tim O'Brien Photos - Tim is a legally blind photographer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who gets the camera to see for him what he can't see for himself. Tim's photos have been widely published, and prints are available from the web site Blog, previously known as Oberazzi, included. Atom Feed RSS Feed
Braving the Sight Unseen - Interview with Blind Photographer Timothy O’Brien
blindphotogs - Tim's Twitter page
Trey is blind in one eye, and doesn't know whether that's made any difference to the way in which he takes photographs. He is an enthusiast for High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography because, he says, the images look like what you actually see.
In this section are some of the tools and techniques you might use to capture images, and, above all, to represent finished images. While some people with failing sight might simply see their images adequately on a large monitor, there are many who will want to go further and experiment with turning images into sound or tactile media.
Art Speaking - live audio description of artworks at Wolverhampton Art Gallery in the UK West Midlands, with participating galleries in Walsall, Coventry and Leamington Spa. YouTube Video
As far as the heart can see | Manila Bulletin - multi-sensory installations featured in Manila Design Week 2009.
Blind Photographers Use Gadgets to Realize Artistic Vision « LVATUG blog has more on this story and the Blind Photographers Flickr Group.
Access to Photography: Making Photography Accessible to Persons with Exceptional Educational Needs - many resources to make photography accessible to those with a variety of disabilities. Materials include adaptive devices and links to academic papers. 72-page PDF file - may not work with your assistive technology.
Accessible Image a mailing list on freelists to discuss many forms of graphical images accessible to blind people, including photography.
Accessibility Features of SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) a note from w3.org.
AEB's Guidelines for Verbal Description- Making Visual Art Accessible To People Who are Blind And Visually Impaired
APH Tactile Graphic Image Library - images that can be copied or adapted for personal or educational use. 6 month free membership available.
BBC News | Photo exhibition for the blind - "Touch and see" in Kiev, Ukraine, presents photos with textured tactile versions and audio descriptions. With embedded video and commentary.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Reading 'to go' for blind people - the portable K-NFB reader, an obvious example of a camera enabling blind people to see.
BrainPort Vision Device - a device for converting images to champagne bubbles on your tongue! This device is not yet approved for sale to the public.
[PDF] CANADIAN BRAILLE AUTHORITY REPORT OF TACTILE GRAPHICS SUB-COMMITTEE, Part 3 on the readability of tactile graphics.
Converting Images Into Sounds for the Blind refers to some Cornell University software intended to convert colours on maps into sound.
Daniel Kish using and explaining Echolocation - this video shows that Dan's ability to use sonar like a bat enables him to go mountan biking, so it could be useful for photographers too? Another video is Echo vision: The man who sees with sound
Even a colorblind person can color-correct a photo - Chris Nicholson explains how you can use RGB values for colour correction even if, like him, you're red-green blind.
Exhibition to target blind visitors - "A Different View", which includes tactile, sound and Braille items to help blind people enjoy the Lake District of England, runs from May 5th to May 21st at Bowness Bay Information Centre.
Giving the blind a look-in - the Samsung Touch Sight Camera has tactile and audio features. Not only does the tactile display give the photographer a touchable image , but the camera also records 3 seconds of sound when the shot is taken. This camera made it to number 50 in Time Magazine's Best 50 Inventions of the Year, 2008. Another article on this camera.
[PDF] Guide to Designing Tactile Graphics for Children's Books from American Printing House for the Blind
Hands-On Book of Hubble Images Allows the Visually Impaired to "Touch the Universe" - NASA has released a book entitled "Touch the Universe" by Noreen Grice, which has tactile and coloured images of many space objects. Book details Video profile of Noreern Grice, where she explains how this passion came about. Readers' comments from the NASA site. Readers who ordered this book were also interested in Touch the Sun by the same author. New for July 2011, Getting a Feel for Lunar Craters
Handy tools for the colorblind: white balance references - this article from the Colorblind Photographer blog advises on getting the colour balance right even if you don't understand all the technicalities.
HoodLoupe 3.0-Hoodman Corporation - a magnifier and anti-glare device for camera LCD screens.
Tactile Graphics - RNIB information
MIT develops camera for the blind - this is a rather vague story about a 'seeing machine' developed by Elizabeth Goldring at MIT. What the device can do exactly, where you can get one, and who it would help aren't at all clear.
Museo Nazionale Alinari Della Fotografia in Florence, Italy, caters for blind and other disabled people.
New Technique Helps Blind to see the EyePlusPlus Forehead Sensory Recognition System (FSRS) sends electrical impulses from a video camera worn as a pair of sunglasses to a headband worn by the wearer. This is emerging technology, at first tried in the Nordic countries.
On Disabilities in the Arts - the frustrations of trying to provide arts opportunities for disabled people at a museum. The article focuses primarily on blind and partially sighted people.
PictureBraille "provides an easy solution for the production of tactile graphics on a Braille embosser. Printed images can be scanned from an existing print source, imported from common Windows graphic file formats, such as bitmap, gif and jpeg, or pasted from any drawing program."
Quantum Technology serving the needs of people with print disabilities. Internationally available products include the Mountbatten Brailler, the Jot a Dot portable Brailler and the PIAF tactile image maker, which uses swell paper. The site lists international dealers.
Seeing with Sound - The vOICe - free software that converts graphics into sound. The vOICe Learning Edition for PC is enough to test the idea. There are other editions that work with mobile camera phones. The middle three letters represent 'Oh, I see', hence the strange capitalisation.
Software for the colorblind: HueVue for the iPhone | The Colorblind Photographer - this app can simulate colour blindness, perform colour matching and identification. HueVue web site
Sound imaging: clever acoustics help blind people see the world - the CASBliP Project is working on a navigation device that can turn images from two cameras (with field depth) into a realistic sound representation of what is in front of a blind person. More about the CASBliP Project
Tactile Graphics: an Overview and Resource Guide
[DOC] Tactile Graphics Resources - connected with the Accessible Image mailing list.
Tactile Graphics Website - basic information on tactile graphics production, hardware and software, training and conference notices.
Tactile Photography - the "Senses" Project in Boston, Ma, created by Venezuelan artist Mariliana Arvelo to produce tactile images used by blind, sighted and deaf-blind people. This second article shows some of the images and describes how they were made.
TactileGraphics.org: Lucia Hasty Invites You to Learn Tactile Graphics
Tactile Images - this site describes a method for representing tactile sensations by slowing down or accelerating the response of the mouse. Descriptions and video included.
tactile Images and Maps - training courses in the UK.
Taiwanese student invents free photography software so blind people can feel pictures - Media dis&dat - The system sends images from an Android cellphone to a tactile display.Emphasis on affordability.
Talking Tactile Tablet T3 from Royal National College for the Blind - a touch sensitive, multi sensory device which provides instant audio feedback from tactile images.
The Tactile Library - this free site, set up by Zychem, Ltd., includes many tactile images loosely based on the UK National Curriculum, but applicable elsewhere.
Topographical maps and student who is blind - Barry Kleider shares his experience of producing tactile images at Minnesota State Academy for the Blind, Faribault.
Unique Clonmel expo makes art more accessible to all - South Tipperary County Museum is hosting "Altered Images", an exhibition made accessible to people with disabilities. The show goes on until August 5th, 2009.
What are Tactile Graphics? - an introduction to what tactile graphics are, how they may be produced, and how blind people may use them.
Wikipedia Haptics Page - haptics has to do with the sense of touch, and there are various technologies emerging that use the sense of touch.
Zychem Ltd - swell paper, tactile diagram fusers and tactile learning aids for visually impaired people, including the Talking Tactile Tablet.
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© Vince Thacker, 2007-2011
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