Nothing Peripheral: A Sight Impaired Artist

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Oliver Sacks talks with John Dugdale

John Dugdale is a blind photographer, whose work I've been admiring for many years. I actually met him briefly when SWPC went to one of his exhibitions.
Here both Sacks and Dugdale discuss vision, sight loss and perception.
Mark Andres, of SWPC, will be moderating a discussion of this
film at the Rubin Museum in New York October 9.

UPDATE... Mark wasn't able to moderate the discussion, but Donald Martinez and I both did. The Rubin Museum's theatre is quite innovative and relaxed, providing seating at candle lit tables, so the audience can enjoy lunch too. The dark space, though difficult for me to navigate, is very warm, and Don and I took some questions about image making and sight loss from the many people gathered there. Though I couldn't see our audience- I heard the applause at least! Thank you to the Rubin Museum.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Fae4UPCMqtA

Sunday, September 8, 2013

The Moon- Half a diptych

Last week I finally finished the last section of my diptych called-"The Sun and the Moon". Each main area is enclosed by slender column like forms. This style echoes ancient Greek and Roman fresco decoration that presented the illusion of a hanging panel painting suspended in a miniature architectural enclosure.
Phil, Charlie and Nori helped me out by lighting the two columns, and I did the lighting of myself grasping the luminous spheres, and the surrounding atmosphere. I brought in a special, dot patterned paper that produces a granular effect, I use this paper often. I hope to join all the elelments and present the final piece complete, but, for now, here's the right side.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Photography workshop in Penza Russia

On Saturday September 7, I will be participating in a workshop organized by two of my Russian friends, Anton Akimov and Anna Nistratova. What's different about this workshop, is that I'll take part via the internet, and that's new to me. Norihiro Mizukami has helped me tremendously by sharing his expert filmmaking skills, and has made a demonstration video of me explaining the light painting technique. It'll be shown to the Penza students. Here's the result of that night's photo session.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

The View from Here: On the Snapshot Part 1

It's the personal snapshot I'm going to dwell on. Not the intriguing, or ironic, or unexpectedly fascinating, no. Only the picture whose sole purpose is to remind and reawaken, provokes this inqiry.

The availability of inexpensive cameras and better film in the mid twentieth century, left many Americans with plentiful, usually colorful, paper totems of memory never intended for any other purpose than the personal document. Some artists explore the personal, casual and intimate photo as their theme, but I refer to the unintentionally ordinary.

And to how they resonate and evoke beyond their appearance, beyond just the trap of the visual. Unbound by concerns of form and freed of trends, our snapshot albums let us do a little time travel, and the veneer of style peels away with laughter at our confidence and comfort among the hilariously outdated. It's one of the pleasures of time travel in the shoebox. As great art, they fail - all, but retain their unmistakable grip, molding our memories and charming us with the light and shadow of a vanished world.

These casual snapshots are the dual of my striving as an artist, and examining their meaning is like trying to see the back of my own head, so woven into my mind's fabric of self have they become. Its an inquiry of words. I wont need to mix color on a palette

Matsushige's 17

If I could just let it go, forget about that picture.

Aug 6 2013

As usual, I try to distingish the importance of this morning's essences. As usual, around 8 oclock, I peer outside into the bright eastern morning and sparkling currents of the river below, reconfiguring what I see to another location and time. Then, at 8:15, the required moment, I'll note it all before my eyes, the angle of the sun across roofs, New York's own awakening. I'll compare the similarities and dismiss the differences quickly. Its an annual ritual. Then later, as usual, I'll linger and scrutinize the forms and shades of the bridge embankments of Manhattan, looking odd I guess, even odder than usual, as I stare at what, to others, is nothing at all, but project on these ordinary, urban, functional and gray angles, an emotional echo. August 6. Its a strange personal ritual I share with very few, if anyone else at all, I imagine. As usual, I'll quietly, futiley tell myself to bring my camera there sometime one August 6th, to the Manhattan embankments with their thick railings, to start an art project to mimic or re-enact...that picture... that is seared into my soul, as though my familiar Manhattan surroundings were Miyuki bridge. As though I was Matsushige- the person who made that picture. Or maybe someone else, some lower ranked Military photographer who might have recorded a few on that day too, maybe hidden away even now, forgotten somewhere in a Hiroshima warehouse. As usual, I'll shake my head wondering why I'm so regular in my thinking about these matters around August 6th. That day.That picture.

Dreadful anxieties about annilation flow from that picture.That smudgey, rectangle of distant fires, broken windows and burned victims seems like a detailed imprint not only from the past, but of a possible, awful future too. I grew up in the 1960's, and vividly remember sitting in a school hallway, shoulder to shoulder with my class, ducking and practicing, molding ourselfs to a suitable position which might better resist the impact of a Hydrogen bomb. One morning an odd picture appeared in the lobby of my family's apartment building. That toxic looking, yellow and black fallout shelter icon, directing us to an imagined safety.

During World War II,Yoshito Matsushige was working in Hiroshima as a photographer for the local newspaper. Soon after the atomic explosion, he had the presence of mind to dig out his camera from under the debris of his home, as well as two rolls of film - 24 possible pictures. And at the end of the day, 17 potential shots remained blank.

Evelyn July 2 2013

Monday, July 8, 2013

Yessss!

Fantastic news from Kat Yi. Her documentary "Light Mind" is an official selection of the 2013 HollyShorts Film festival in Hollywood California. I'm beyond happy for her and so proud.
I hope those of you in LA can get a chance to see it. GO KAT!

Friday, June 28, 2013

Mask Aloft

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Hashim 6.25.13

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

On the Stairs

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Upcoming essay

I'm finishing an essay on snapshots. No pictures! Stay tuned.

Friday, May 31, 2013

Yesterday I spent some nice time with Nori Mizukami, who is making a documentary about the Seeing With Photography Collective. Nori agreed to pose for some light paintings. Nori's film is dealing with his own visual problems, due to Lasik eye surgery that went bad .

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Soft and simple-Box Portraits

A magnifying glass lens and a cardboard box are used for our box portraits. A digital camera, focused at the end of the box records the light painting that is used to light our sitters up. Though minimal and very soft, the pictures have interesting subtleties, and gradations of tone that remind me of pastel drawing. Some of us were browsing through our collection of box portraits yesterday at our workshop, so I was inspired to post some of mine here. When grouped together in a gallery exhibition, they present a very striking unity.

Saturday, May 25, 2013

New Video

I've spent the last two weeks making a new video about the Seeing With Photography Collective. Here's the link-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lwK-C9wR8Q

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Two news Pieces

Congratulations to Gaia Squarci who has had a series of her photographs published on the New York Times Lens online blog. "Guided by Blindness" portrays various blind individuals some of whom are members of the Seeing With Photography Collective. Experience Gaia's images, and the accompanying story here...http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/guided-by-blindness/

And Aine Pennello's video is available now and can be experienced HERE on Vimeo. Thank you Aine for your interest.

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Welcome

"Nothing Peripheral" is essentially an art blog, a journal of images and wotds shuffling back and forth in time. I'm not dutiful to regular or timely posting so, there are kind of large gaps, but whenever I make imagery I just have to show, it'll get here.

Many light paintings are on these pages as well as some writing. Since most of my work now is created using the "light painting" technique of photography a quick definition can explain the photographs you see. A light painting is a long exposure photo putting the camera on a sturdy tripod and in a very dark room or other space. The shutter is left open and the photographer uses a flashlight to paint their subject over a lengthy time period.

Visual artists who have very diminished sight or who are totally blind, are expanding the rich and varied facets of art even further now and I'm fortunate to be a part.

Since so much of my work now is created using the light painting technique, a quick definition could be helpful. Basically a camera is on a steady tripod and in a very dark room or space the shutter is left open and the artists subject is painted with the light shining from a flashlight.

I began light painting in 1997 with the Seeing With Photography Collective here in New Yprk City.

Contact me eonradius@yahoo.com

At the Light Painting World Alliance websites, you'll find the phrase “Night is Canvas” . Night is no ordinary word for me, I suffer from night blindness. It's a powerful, often frightening word, separating me from the able bodied, putting me in the folder labelled "Unable"- legally blind, asking for help to cross the street. Night, and its draining, light-less hardships, needn’t be only that. After all, the other part, “canvas” is what matters more in the end.

I belong to a group of photographers based in New York City called the seeing With photography Collective. Many in our art group are blind or sight impaired, like myself. We create and exhibit light paintings.

The very nature of our visual limitations can provoke any viewer or perceiver of these images...Is less, more? What is seeing?

Night is often our permanent reality too, as sightless people. I myself am nearly blind, but see a little too, now and then, so I stand in two realms. Every cast shadow, each building entrance, robs me of sight.

I'm desperate for light really, any light, any scrap of stray, ineffectual photon, I feel the desperation -my dying retinas ravenous to see, like an emaciated, skeletal dog will gnaw and scour the air off the alley.

From the context of blindness, the word “ light” glows with particular, symbolism beyond its physical nature. It glows with reflected and diming echoes morphing with sighs and regrets at its intolerable loss, its hopes, its whispered paradises....of incandescent agility and certainty. Light's abandonment lingers like afterglow, we swallow hard, loosing spectacle, comparison, choice and pleasure.

To speak of light, we speak of its opposite nature too, embedded and not apparent. A dual part barely recognized, yet always there lurking, frowning and nodding within - the dark.

Our group originated from a photography class for blind and sight impaired students. Mark Andres, our teacher, taught us the technique of light painting in 1997. Mark was interested to learn what we would make of the technique as it involves using the mind in a place where we all were equally in the dark. It wasn’t about capturing a decisive moment, as much as constructing something. There was resonance with the technique, and we as a group, haven't put down our flashlights yet.

There are a variety of people who shoot light paintings but can't see. Some have little background in photography or any visual art media, some enjoyed photography for the usual reasons before loosing their eyesight. Others were actively involved in serious image making for a very long time, and found there an artistic outlet to explore.

Some in our group see nothing, though many have some remaining, but minimal vision. A few see well, even what's termed “normally”.

When I was told there was an actual photography class for blind and sight impaired students back in 1993, I remember I was surprised, a little sceptical, but beaming with happiness because others had understood that making visual art and not seeing were not mutually exclusive. I felt like a connection was made between two threads that had been re- attached. Two electric wires that needed to join, finally did in that bland basement classroom at the VISIONS Blind Services Organization, where we work.

At first it sounds improbable, but just at first. Like some new rhythm, some unfamiliar but absorbing thing.

Memories play a part in our group's imagery, but they aren’t the sole theme by any means.

Sunshine and faces, that funny red chair, costumes, picnics and monsters, movies and night clubs, cartoons and sports events, ancient frescoes and scary subway rides, and countless other memories of the world of light, all reform before our flashlights.

Despite sight loss we all have memory and ideas to explore in our mind's eye long after our biological eyes give up on the act and art of looking.

We re- create them again, different maybe, not duplicates, not snapshots, but works that bring out that memory or theme with the perspectives all shifted, energized, sparkling.

The light painter's dark frame invites all photographers to come and illuminate. I think it must be hard for any photographer to resist the urge to try one given the chance. Its darkness is very familiar territory, our default color, our resigned dark velvet blindfold that we can't tear away. We run our hands around the frameed out scene, through the central spaces, feeling fringes and walls,,touching whats on the other side of the camera’s viewAnd shine our little flashlights on that night canvas, painting with light...quivering fabrics shaken and moved around firey beings amid Interstellar jewels.

The light paintings aren't made quickly, they take a few minutes and our models shift a little, droop a little over time. The laughs ensue at the results, three eyes, squashed noses, pinheads, people morphed into squat statuettes and ghostly elfs.

Mostly its a collaborative effort when we work, but more experienced artists can work independently too. And focusing? That’s done by a sighted assistant but does a film director focus their own motion picture cameras? The minor things like focusing are a different story from the major things like ideas, composition and lighting, that are done by the sightless, sighted, or sight impaired photographer.

None of this is surprising of course, as a visual artist I understand it.

The blind photographers will also direct where each person, object or background area is, and how all should be positioned, so again, the creative control is left to the photographer, the sighted assistant just letting them know things like what's in, or not in the camera's frame.

There's struggle, there's the battle against the dark. I sense this in our work, but, maybe it’s my own internal projection. We light-less, enact on some level, a very core, very primal encounter that's a universal archetype - the struggle of light over dark. It's mainly subconscious and maybe not fully realized, even by we who make the work,. Archetypes can work well as form, as far as art goes, I think.

And there's defiance in that frame too - the flashlight as weapon in this effort, this determination to hold on, and not go quietly into the darkness.

Some have said our imagery can be nightmarish or sad, and that's sometimes so.

Yet there's an enorous variety of themes and styles found among our member's work, fashionable runway stylizations, Biblical tableaux, happy partying and old Master re-enactments are all here, cheerfully hued, non angst- ridden enough to be hung comfortably above a living room sofa.

Comparing our group's work with other light paintings, I see a difference but I’m not sure what it is. I don't see us as being fixated on pretty lights or special effects, just for the sake of prettiness or coolness that you forget a minute later. They seem simpler, but still visually nuanced and raw simultaneously.

We sometimes teach workshops and I recall some photographers who had a difficult time letting go of their light meter mind -set, and stared at me in sceptical disapproval when I said the timing was a matter of experience. It was sort of fun being a guy with a white blind cane walking into things, and giving lessons on how to make photographs. You get used to these sorts of things really.

In a way taking images with out seeing is a significant reorganization of expectations.

A blindfold can work great as a teaching tool. We use them with the sighted students. Many really are thrilled to be blindfolded, and smile, and grope around, saying “Wow” and getting goose -bumps feeling things, and just delving into their other senses that are mainly ignored in the photography studio. But other photographers have quite a hard time letting go.

By deliberately shutting out light itself, and briefly inviting in the harrowing, dreadful fear of any visual artist, blindfolding touches on certain elements of psychology and creativity that are good to be aware of.

Donald Martinez, a sighted member of our collective, sometimes closes his eyes when he makes a light painting, to distance himself further from the tightness, the crispness and control, the domination of light upon the mind.

Human nature doesn't want to relinquish feedback from our efforts, our ears from our music, our taste from our cooking, yet some can never have the full visual assessment of their work that eyes provide.

How does the blind photographer know what they have made? Those who can see describe, and become the eyes ...providing the scope, the tone, and narrative that will form the structure of the new creation, glowing unseen on the camera's digital screen and glowing too in a different way, in the internal mind of the unseeing artist.

Lately the work of blind and sight impaired visual artists is becoming more widely known. It’s a new facet in the cultural legacy of art.

What do we have to offer the world of light? Maybe we can act as a sort of mirror. One that reflects your views, maybe shifting and nudging cozy presumptions.

I've no confident theory to pre

sent on the nature of blind photography. For me, and many in the Seeing With Photography Collective, it’s an experience to be lived, dim and flickering sometimes, loud and warm at others.

Without light... voices take on an expansive, rich meaning. Ideas loom more directly. There's less distraction by visual clutter. Working in the dark with my group causes me no gut-churning dread, no dizzying loss.

Something memorable happens creating imagery in the dark, with the dark, the dark as our supportive friend, all of us sighted or blind together, thinking, trying, laughing, describing, listening...weaving something.

Light is essentially indifferent, angled into the lens of an eye or cold camera, we give it meaning and arrange its context. In the intertwining of sighted and not sighted, one thread describing another, eventually we all must close our eyes in sleep, lightless sighted and blind alike, and all our dreaming eyes understand and gaze, and see.

IGHT IS CANVAS