Geoff
Photographing a blind person is an experience laced with so much paradox. Geoff was a willing participant in this complex engagement. He is endlessly fascinated with sight; his own lack of it; descriptions of the sighted world, of light, of this mysterious sense which to him typifies another world.
Geoff cannot ‘picture’ anything. He can remember that an object is there, but would not be able to describe it. He does not know what a tree is, only the feel of the bark of its’ trunk. We took one walk down the street he has lived on for twenty years or more, and he asked me what I could see. He had never known there was a pharmacy, a bus stop, a zebra crossing much nearer to his house than the one he always uses.
I was interested in the different ways in which we manage our lives, his methods for doing this without sight. What does he do when an object is lost, or a number left on an answering machine, how to know when his clothes are dirty, where it is safe to cross the road? How differently the world is engaged with when sight is not possible.
But my other interest lies in the inherently visual nature of this project. I am trying to make images, using a scheme of tonalities between light and dark, concepts Geoff has no understanding of. I am by necessity in a one-way relationship with my subject, a voyeur. He can never look back. But Geoff understands this complexity, is himself fascinated, wants to explore what it means to be photographed when he cannot conceive an image, a picture, light and dark.
I know that I cannot pretend to be making photographs which somehow reflect Geoff’s view of life, when even those terms – reflect; view – have literally no meaning for him. Do I try to make images which show how I see his existence? Should I try to be simplistic and take all of these photographs in the dark? I talk with Geoff about all of the questions which persist as I photograph him.
