Film making and photography are probably two things that the visually impaired are not associated with, but is that because they can't, or because no one has taken the time to teach them? This is a question that Kevin Bright, producer of "Friends" is taking on. He is currently teaching a film class at the Perkins School for the Blind. Through trial and error he is finding out ways to help those who can't see understand how to use a camera, light a room, and write scripts. His students have just finished their first short film, which has been entered into the Braille Institute's film competition called "Cinema Without Sight".
Some of the techniques that he uses with his students include: having them use their canes to decide how far away their subject needs to be and using desk lamps, which the students can feel, to understand the difference between good and bad lighting. He understands that losing one sense does not make the other 4 useless.
This story was really inspiring to me because , taking pictures is one of the things I miss the most. I enjoy showing my friends pictures that I've taken in the past, because I think it helps them understand that I used to have more vision.. Even now I will take pictures, but I usually ask for help angling the camera so that I don't cut off heads. I think, one of these days I'm going to just takephotos using my other senses and see what comes out. Who knows, I may discover a whole new art form.
If you're interested in seeing the work of blind photographers, please visit the "Blind Photographers Blog", or the "Blind Photographers Flicker Group".
If you want to read the whole story about Kevin Bright and his blind students, you can find it here.
How do you think film making would be different if you couldn't see? If you are blind, how do you adapt to not being able to see what you're capturing?
Posts
How to Wear Red Lipstick
-
How to Wear Red Lipstick *from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit
*
Zarpor.com says that red lips are the quintessential sexy look but getting
it...
1 week ago
This is one realm of the world I don't care anything about at all but have used cameras and just pointed at peoples' voices and stuff has come out, apparently. And with digital cameras it's easy to get a sighted person to tell you if you need to adjust your angle and do it over. One of my friends also has a camera that can tell if the subject is smiling, which triggers the snap of the picture.
ReplyDeleteI love the blind photographers blog! They have inspired me to snap photos of my own and to save toward getting a better camera. I've also gotten a lot of practical tips from them, particularly one whose visual impairment is like mine.
ReplyDeleteAs for the film-making class at Perkins, that's cool, as long as they take it seriously and don't just use it as an oddity.
I wonder what sorts of tools are available to make this task easier. I could imagine, for example, a tripod that reports the angle of the camera lens, or maybe some kind of camera feedback system that beeps when the face-detection software finds a face (or faces) near the top third of the frame.
ReplyDelete