SF0 / michellevh1 / Seeing Beyond Sight Photo Challenge

30 + 20 points

Seeing Beyond Sight Photo Challenge by Lia Lowry

November 17th, 2007 9:42 AM

INSTRUCTIONS: Seeing Beyond Sight has partnered with SFZero to challenge you to see the world differently - with more than your eyes.

Welcome new users: SFZero is an ongoing game in which you can choose to participate (or not) after you do the Seeing Beyond Sight Challenge.

Click here for new user registration.

1. Blindfold yourself.
(wear shades or tape your eyes shut)

2. Go out in public and make your way in the world.
(go 1 block, 1 hour or 1 roll of film; go with a friend or alone; make up your own process)

3. Photograph things you notice. And, just notice.
(What do you notice differently about objects, people, actions, interactions?)

4. Embrace the whole experience as much as the picture taking.
(Engage. Have a conversation with people you encounter. Take it all in.)

5. Share your story.
(For each photograph write a caption about your experience - a few lines or several paragraphs if you want.)

6. Challenge some friends to do it.
(email them the link: sf0.org/seeingbeyondsight)

Please don't post all the pictures from your shoot, but chose 1 to 3 that are the best images or are most telling of your experience. Caption the photos describing something about your experience - that is as important as the image itself. Longer stories are welcomed and may be added to www.seeingbeyondsight.org.

If you depend on your eyes to get around, then it is hard not to use them. Although you can tell us about how difficult it is to be blind, focus more on what you noticed about the world as you embarked on this journey.

This experience isn’t about blindness – it is about seeing, noticing and paying attention with more than your eyes.

This challenge was inspired by SEEING BEYOND SIGHT: PHOTOGRAPHY BY BLIND TEENAGERS, a new book published by Chronicle Books.

So, I decided to go to my friend's birthday party blindfolded. It was at 8:00 in the morning, and the plan was that they were going to wake her up, blindfold her, and take her somewhere. I wasn't quite sure where we were going, but I drove over to her dorm room, and blindfolded myself. Climbing the stairs to the fourth floor was kinda difficult, but luckily I ran into Ronny on the way and she helped me to where I was supposed to be. Once everyone arrived, we woke up Chelsea and blindfolded her.
So we took the elevator down, luckily for me, and then someone else drove my car, while I sat in the driver's seat. When we got to Perkins, which is apparently where we were going for breakfast, Chelsea, the birthday girl, and I confused the waitress. I was blind but not the birthday girl, and the birthday girl was being unblindfolded. I think the waitress was amused though. I listened as someone had to tell me what was on the menu and chose to split an omelette with my friend Maggie. While we waited for our food, someone put a straw wrapper in my water, which I didn't know about, and we played hangman...my drawings weren't so good.
Eating was a challenge. It was hard to put jelly on the toast or cut the omelette in pieces. I eventually got the whole omelette piece on the fork and ate it from there. When we left to pay, I had to sign for my credit card. I tried to stay blind, I did, but my signature kinda sucked, and the Perkins lady apparently wasn't too happy with me, so I cheated a bit to sign the receipt.
At this point, Grant decided to mess with me by poking me and then ruinning away, putting his hand in front of my camera so I couldn't see, among other things. Then we went home, and I unblindfolded myself, and sent the challenge to those who ate at Perkins with us or at least the people who's voices I heard and recognized.
The good thing was that Chelsea told me at the end that she was glad I was blindfolded with her in the begining since we did it together, and then when she wasn't blindfolded, she got to be amused by watching me, so all was good.
Things I noticed...the ground is a lot bumpier than I once thought, being blind while amusing at first gets frusterating, and coffee smells bad in my opinion.

- smaller

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This is Ronny blindfolding Chelsea. I'm kinda proud that I actually could take this photo, since most of them that I took are of walls and half of people and really nothing at all.

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