Re: [Leica] Blind photographers?

["Barney Quinn" <Barney.Quinn@noaa.gov>]

Peter Klein wrote:

>
> A blind writer can dictate words to a secretary.  A blind composer can
> dictate or play music to a musical secretary.  Bach was blind at the end
> of his life, and dictated his last compositions. Including some of "The
> Art of Fugue." And while Evelyn Glennie is deaf, she performs barefoot so
> she can "feel" the music with her feet. I doubt she can perceive melody or
> harmony, but being a percussionist, it doesn't matter.
>
>

I think that there is much wisdom in what Peter has said. If  I remember
correctly one of the things Bach wrote when he was blind and near the end of
his life is the Organ Choral, "When in the Hour of Greatest Need (Perhaps one
of the Bach scholars on the list will be kind enough to correct me if I am in
error.)  This piece has, aside from its obvious theological implications,
always said something to me about the very high level of extra difficulty and
struggle which become required to do art when significant disability become
involved.

For me an answer can be found in Evelyn Glennie's  experience. As Peter says
she's deaf and takes her shoes off so she can feel the music through her feet.
I've seen and heard her perform, and she is wonderful. Her world of vibrations
is as real to her as is my world of sounds. Perhaps she even enjoys her
drumming more that I enjoy my cello playing. Who knows. Could be.

If she and Peter were playing in the same orchestra it would seem to you as an
audience member that she, he, and you were living in the same reality space.
But you are not. The situation is very much like states of altered quantum
reality in a Star Treck Episode. The worlds exist simultaneously, are both
equally valid, and yet are totally different.

I also think that Peter is correct when he says that this falls apart when
pushed to the visual world. There is no question that Evelyn Glennie is a
world class musician. No musician I know would turn down a chance to do a gig
with her. If one wants to call the work of a blind photographer pointing a
camera at something and pushing the button high art then I say fine. I am not
going to fight with you about it. But, I am going to say that the result
exists in an alternative universe which, while perhaps valid, is also quite
alien, at least to me. IMHO. <grin> :-)

Barney




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