I am a photographerwho is legally-blind , but not totally blind, and therefore have a limited view of the world, compared to those with normal vision. Legal blindness means that the vision in the best eye, with correction, is 20/200 or worse. The acuity in my best eye is about 11/400, which means that I can see something (like the big E on the eye chart) from about 11 feet away, while someone with 20/20 vision could see the same thing from about 400 feet away. A tree or a  building could be seen from further away than 11 feet, but details will be missing. I can see colors, shapes and contrast, meaning some detail, when things are very close to my face. I can read the big headlines pretty easily in good light but cannot read news print without some very strong magnifying glasses and a good light source.

 

   When using my reading glasses, I must hold what I am looking at within 3 inches of my face for my eyes to focus. It is a wonderful to have as much  vision as I have, and it would take much more effort and concentration to function with less or no vision. 

  

   Having said that, there is a tremendous amount of detail in this world that I simply do not see.  I walk by a brick building and see the dark walls and maybe the shapes of the windows that are closest to me, but I don't see the bricks, the house number, or the person who may or may not be sitting on the porch. I might see the shape of an orchid, and the general color of that flower, but a picture, when blown up on my computer, shows me a most amazing piece of artwork, done by the creator. There are dozens of tiny little lines, some of them with more than one color, and it turns out that those lines are delicately arranged to form a pleasing and amazing pattern.  I will never forget the first time I saw the detail on a friend's orchid. I was, and continue to be, in awe of such unimaginable . 

  

 My camera has made it possible for me to see some amazing things, as I go through this life.  The enlarged pictures I take show me what would be impossible for me to see with my naked eye. Each time I see the beauty and intricacies that a photo has captured, I find myself saying, "Omagosh, look at that."  

 

   For me, there is a miracle of discovery in most of the pictures I take. Each photograph has a story of how the image was captured, and how I was amazed by what I saw in the enlargement. I took a picture of a horse race by looking through binoculars to find the moving dark spot on the track. Then I exchanged the binoculars for the camera, aimed to hopefully capture the track, and then took the photo by guessing when the dark spot might be in front of the camera.  I think there were ten or twelve races the day I was at Keeneland in Lexington, and I ended up with three or four pictures showing horses racing. One of those pictures is in the "animal gallery." 

 

   I have descriptions with most photographs on this site, so that the reader will have an idea of how I took the picture, and what the surprise was, when I saw it on a computer screen. I also hope to be able to describe each photograph, so that someone with a visual impairment might know what the pictures are about.

 

   This website offers a glimpse of amazement, as seen by a nontraditional photographer. It is my sincere hope that viewers will share these gifts of awe and wonder, as they take a closer look at a legally-blind photographer's view of this amazing world

 

 

It is never too late to take a closer look.