I’ve previously posted a story of Rusidah, the armless photographer. Now, there’s a more remarkable tale of a blind photographer. Without being able to see, he’s able to capture photographs. Hard to believe, I know, since photography is an art where sight is needed to produce and to enjoy its products. Well, here’s his tale.
Tommy Edison was blind since birth. As a blind person, Edison has no grasp of the concept of color, depth of field, nor composition concept. Those 3 concepts are the most important concept in producing a photograph. He says that explaining to him the concept of color is like explaining the sound of waves to a deaf person. He admits that he has no understanding on this most basic of concept. But this didn’t prevent him from having an Instagram account filled with photos he shot himself.
“I was really just pointing the camera at the sky, angle a little bit and start shooting. And the photo got 1300 likes,” said Edison to The Huffington Post as quoted on Monday (1 / 2/ 2013).
Curious about Edison’s shooting technique and how he went viral in Instagram? Check out the Youtube video he posted.
Apparently he used the facility in the “Accessibility Setting” on his iPhone where when he presses one of the menus, the iPhone verbally informs him of what he just pressed. Tommy Edison also uses the Instagram application to edit and upload his photos into the internet. He shoots according to the sound of the object he wants to photograph. By placing his iPhone in front of his face, it’s like the iPhone is now his eyes and the resulting photo is a manifestation of his vision.
You can browse through his gallery via his twitter account @blindfilmcritic and his istagram profile of the same name (instagram.com/blindfilmcritic). Good photographs or not, you be the judge. But one thing’s for sure; his drive and ambition despite of his shortcomings has to be applauded. He can still create works of photography that can otherwise be deemed impossible for people of his disability.
Edison currently works at a Connecticut radio station as a traffic reporter. Previously, he also drew attention for his film reviews he posts onto his “Blind Film Critic” website.
