RE: [Leica] Autofocus Leica R, Now Photographing Blind

["Kit McChesney | acmefoto" <kitmc@acmefoto.com>]

Seriously, B.D., and I apologize for calling you a boor, and for agreeing
that you were being politically incorrect. I think the issues are even more
serious than being either of those two. The issue has more to do with the
idea of what constitutes images worth "seeing."

Consider that an image made by an artist is a product of more, considerably
more, than just what can be "seen" in a conventional sense. How many times
have you looked at a photograph and wondered, or marveled, really, about how
the maker of that image came to create the image as you see it, as you the
viewer of the image, sees it. What if you attended an exhbition of
photographs by a certain photographer, and were totally bowled over by how
beautiful they were, how perceptive, how "whatever" it is that made the
images compelling for you. And then what would you do if you found out that
the photographer could not see? Would you consider the images any less
beautiful, any less compelling?

How many photographs have you taken yourself, images that you later
examined, only to find that there were things in the image that you yourself
were not conscious of "placing" there when you took the photograph? How can
you account for that?

What about Beethoven? How can one say that someone who can't hear cannot
make music? His compositions were created in his mind, and made in notation
on paper so that others could hear what he "envisioned," or perhaps the
better word would be "en-heard," that he later noted on the manuscript
before him. Did the music he composed have any less value because he could
not hear it? What about musicians in our own time, who cannot hear, but who
can compose electronically via computers? Can visualize sound? Or can feel
vibrations in the body? Who is to say that the reception of that "music" by
some other means than one's eardrum is an invalid mode of interpreting the
sound?

I believe that you simply cannot assert that someone whose sense may be
different is incapable of making an image that is compelling to others who
can "see" it in the conventional sense, and that the person who made the
image did not themselves "see" the image in their imagination/mind/soul,
prior to capturing it, by whatever means, on film or paper. Or that they do
not "see" that image in their imagination as they are creating it, or later,
after they've made it. Does it matter that the image they've created "looks"
different from the one they conceived or envisioned? Every image appears to
be a different image to every eye viewing it. In the ancient world, the
artist was a shaman, a person whose vision was different from the rest of
the tribe. Their ability to envision things that others could not see was
what earned them the reverence they rightly enjoyed from the rest of their
people. We continue to prize this ability in the artist, in the
photographer, that he or she can "see" what others cannot. I can think of no
better example of someone who can see what others cannot see than someone
who is blind.

What we really seek in images, what makes them most compelling to us, is the
presence of the spirit of the maker in them. How that presence arrives in
the image is a mystery to most anyone who creates. It is also the thing most
artists strive for--that one moment of ecstasy when the latent image begins
to appear in the developing tray, and we ask ourselves, "Who did that?"

Kit
- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of bdcolen
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 5:58 PM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: RE: [Leica] Autofocus Leica R


Okay, I can't help myself...I am going to be totally politically
incorrect and ROFLOL! (And, yes, I've seen the book of photographs by
blind "photographers."

I know: I'm cruel. I have no imagination, blah, blah, blah, blah. Get a
grip, folks! Alternatively sighted people are BLIND. They CAN NOT SEE.
Photography is a VISUAL medium. It requires VISION.

I don't care if a blind person can point an autofocus camera at a
subject he or she hears and "take a picture." An Ape can do the same
thing, and I am not going to take Ape photography seriously either.

I know, I know, there are a bunch of Thai elephants that paint and a
bunch of nuts who pay allot of money for the paintings.

I'll tell you something, when I lose the remainder of my hearing - I now
suffer from moderate hearing loss in one ear and a severe lost in the
other, and wear two hearing aids, I am NOT going to apply for a job as a
freaking MUSIC critic! ;-)

B. D.

- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On Behalf Of Kit
McChesney | acmefoto
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 7:37 PM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: RE: [Leica] Autofocus Leica R


Speaking of photographers with poor eyesight, or even more amazing,
photographers who are legally or functionally blind, Aperture just
published last year a gorgeous book on the subject of blind
photographers, titled appropriately, Shooting Blind. It is a moving
volume, and poses some interesting questions about how we see, and what
we see. There are many blind photographers ... Evgen Bavcar, Flo Fox,
Gerardo Nigenda, among others. Bavcar has some interesting things to say
about the differences between the visual, and the visible.

"My task is the reunion of the visible and the invisible worlds;
photography allows me to pervert the established method of perception
amongst those who see and those who don't." ... and ...  "Each photo I
create must be perfectly ordered in my head before I shoot. I hold the
camera to my mouth in order to photograph those I speak to. Autofocus
helps me, but I can manage on my own: it is simple, my hands measure the
distance and the rest is achieved by the desire for images that inhabits
me."

I suspect that even with their visual difference ("seeing" differently
from most of the rest of the world) that not all blind or visually
impaired photographers use autofocus ... focus is not necessarily the
requisite hallmark of a photographic image. Don't we use the unfocused
as a tool of expression? What about bokeh? (Thanks, Mark R!)

Kit

- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of John
Collier
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 4:27 PM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: Re: [Leica] Autofocus Leica R


I used to agree with Doug but have since run across a few people who
have such poor eyesight they need auto focus. Mind you that is not very
many people for the plethora of AF cameras out there...

No plans for AF here,

John Collier

On Tuesday, March 11, 2003, at 03:56 PM, Douglas Herr wrote:

> lea <lea@whinydogpress.com> wrote:
>
>> I'd be first in line to have one....
>
> The combination of an APO lens and an SL, SL2, R8 or R9 viewfinder
> makes focussing too easy to make AF worth discussing (IMHO).

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