When I post photos on Facebook, I sometimes get asked how someone with a visual impairment can possibly take decent photos. I don’t entirely understand it myself, but here’s how I found out…
Tervuren, June 2020
I’ve always had an eye for a photo. And I still do. It seems counter intuitive that someone with a visual impairment should be able to take good photos, but fortunately that is still the case for me.
Since my student days I have always used serious cameras, both SLR, 35 mm compact and 6 × 6 medium format. I love to play with lighting, focus and depth of field, to create a unique image.
First attempts
I had wanted to take pictures since my time in Gasthuisberg, but my first attempts went badly. My first attempts were with my mobile phone, which is capable of taking very good pictures, but it was hopeless. I struggled to keep the phone in the right place to capture the image. I could hardly see the the small screen, and it was anything but straight. And so, for more than six months, I thought taking photographs was just a part of my history. It was not until November that I tried again, and when it happened, it happened unexpectedly.
I went away for a weekend with my two sons to Groningen, in the North of the Netherlands. It would be my first time away without my wife, and that was challenging enough for me. I hadn’t yet done such a long journey by car, which I expected to be very tiring (it was), and I wasn’t completely sure how I’d cope. We planned lots of rest breaks.
It happened in Groningen
I packed everything I needed (or rather, my wife did!) and we left. En route we went to have a look at Urk, on the IJsselmeer, which for me was a first visit to a unique place. It used to be a fishing island in the middle of the sea, but since the Delta Works it is now part of the south coast of the Ijsselmeer, and it’s well worth a visit.
that night we stayed in an airbnb not far from Groningen. That was another new experience for me, and it was another good one. I was exhausted after such a long day, but happy. And I had no inkling of the ambush that had been laid for me.
that night the lads brought out my DSLR and put in my hands. Frankly, I was a bit annoyed. What’s the point? You really shouldn’t have brought it. I can’t take photos now anyway.” I tried to give it back but they weren’t having any of it. “Try it”, they said, “you have nothing to lose.”
And so, very much against my better judgement, I looked through the viewfinder of my own camera for the first time since my stroke.
My world changed. All I saw now was the image I wanted to capture. The rest, all the confusion around it, suddenly no longer existed for me. And as soon as I saw it, I knew. I could l do this!
I twisted the zoom, made sure the exposure was ok, and pulled the trigger…
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