It's one of photographers greatest fears, to loose one's sight. That's what makes this image so amazing. Its not just the range of expressive colours, the eery display of movement or the clash between reality and art. It's that it has been taken by Pete Eckert, a blind photographer.
After becoming blind at the age of 28, Eckert embraced photography as a way of expressing himself, shooting ethereal double exposures and vivid light paintings with his Mamiyaflex TLR. "I would take a photo on location outside, and then in the studio I would use the double exposure with low light and I would add in more and more light." Eckert visualises the image he wants to create in his mind and uses his sense of sound, touch and memory to transform the image in his mind into a photograph.
His images are impacting, showing how having a visual impairment doesn't prevent the creativity in a person, it just directs down a different path in picture-making. It makes me wonder, if I lost my sight, would I give up on photography altogether?
"What I get out of taking photos is the event not the picture. I do the large prints to get sighted people thinking. Talking with people in galleries builds a bridge between my mind’s eye and their vision of my work. Occasionally people refuse to believe I am blind. I am a visual person. I just can’t see."
See more of Pete Eckert's work here.
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