Lens culture

Being Seen: Photographing the Blind

This semester, while teaching a course called "Photographic Narratives" for the Plan II Honors Program at UT Austin, I organized a panel of four top local photographers. One of the panelists, Sarah Wilson, brought work from her BLIND PROM series, which precipitated a discussion of ethics and the history of photography.

 

Photograph by Paul Strand

Image Credit: Paul Strand


This 1916 image by Paul Strand is one of the earliest notable photos of a blind subject. 

In an effort to create candid street photos, Strand had been using a trick camera with a false lens that misdirected attention (like a magician waving his wand—look over there!), allowing the photographer to get close to his subjects without their knowledge. That subterfuge was unnecessary in this case. The blind woman is the perfect subject for a photographer like Strand—“the objective corollary of the photographer’s longed-for invisibility” as described by critic Geoff Dyer in The Ongoing Moment.

Visual dismissal?

I ran across an interesting blog on Lens Culture that argues that a recent French magazine cover (posted below) equates Obama to a young, inexperienced boy.
Cover of April issue of French magazine Enjeux
Blogger Jim Casper writes:

This magazine is currently on the racks at news stands all over Paris, and the cover image has become one of those giant back-lit advertisements that blare from the outsides of kiosks on the streets, and ads at bus stops, and posters lining the hallways of the metro stations.

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