On a flight to a destination photo shoot, I met a women who shattered my limited way of thinking. She fumbled to the seat refusing the aid of the flight crew, sat down with the weight of her years, and struck up a conversation with me that I’ll never forget. Elizabeth, widowed, 89 years old, and fiercely independent…is legally blind.
“I see people now better than I ever did before ’cause I can feel them.” She claims that she likes this type of sight better than her 20/20 vision that left her shortly after her true love’s death 9 years ago. I learned that she values her gift of vision, and scoffs at the “blind” label. She is a seer, possessing the ability to use her third eye, the inner eye, to understand the universe. This mystical eye is referred to as the gate that leads within to inner realms and spaces of higher consciousness.
Once she described me down to the laptop quietly humming on knees without turning a milky eye my way, she had all of my attention. Befriending Elizabeth was a gift to me. It opened my eyes. Fate gave me this lesson at a time when I was nervous, feeling inadequate in my craft, worried about executing a series of photo shoots in Destin. It gave me the faith to recognize my own inner eye.
As a photographer, vision counts. We assess the light, ISO, the f/stop, aperture based on what we see from within our view finder. I won’t lie. I suck at mechanics. Real technical know how eludes me and I suffer from fear that some day you all will see that I find the perfect exposure triangle someone else’s holy grail. Done. Fear subsided.
Elizabeth taught me how I see better blind. In a way I’m lucky to be blind, unencumbered by the mechanics of a tool I hold in my hand to capture my subjects. It allows me to see people I photograph purely. To feel them. Take these little boys for example. After being told a dozen times to behave, stand still, hush these fellas gladly embarked in a mock karate bout with me. We shared a secret “you can karate chop me if you want but don’t let the grown ups catch us” moment. And then, they let down their guard with me enabling me to see them be themselves. They just wanted to play and laugh out loud.
Grown ups I photograph want me to understand them just as much, maybe more. Seeing what makes people tick, what makes them unique, what makes them beautiful, that is my gift. And Elizabeth gave me the confidence to recognize it. And to discard guilt for my mechanical ineptitude.
My challenge to you is to discard thinking and opt for feeling in your photography or whatever you do. I don’t get to wrapped up in pursuit of the perfect photo, the money shot, the award winning photo op, “the get.” I do like really getting people though. And it sure helps me take better pictures of them. I hope Elizabeth can help you open your inner eye, to see differently, to see blindly better.