Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

I went to Artsplosure yesterday and participated in the Seeing Beyond Sight Challenge. This means that I put on a blindfold and walked around the art festival with a guide (Tom, a Flickr friend) and took pictures of items on a list (non-human animal, something with an odor, self-portrait, a family, etc.). It’s an exercise that was created by Tony Deifell. he has a book of photographs taken by blind teenagers.

It may sound odd, but it was a great experience to help you to understand what it is like to not have use of your vision. It forces you to rely on other sense completely. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. I think I’m a very sound-oriented person. Not that this is surprising to me. I also found myself relying upon smell a lot. Touch was probably third. Vision still played a part, because I knew immediately when I was moving from sun to shade. Families were really easy to locate because of their unique sounds: baby stroller wheels on the pavement, children’s voices, and Mother-ease.

One thing I did notice most was that I was pretty able to just trust that Tom wasn’t going to let me hurt myself, so I just walked ahead… certainly smaller steps than normal, but not fearful as I might have thought. When Tom tried to tell me about what I was approaching, I asked him to stop. I mostly wanted information about when I’d need to turn to avoid banging into someone or if I had to step up on a curve. If you click on any of the individual pictures in the slideshow that follows, I describe my experience of taking them. I think the dog and the Cigar Man are my favorite.

I ran into some people while leading Tom around who were totally cheating! They were younger girls. The girl who was leading kept telling the blindfolded girl exactly when to click and what she was approaching. The blindfolded girl actually pulled her blindfold up while we were with her!

I really enjoyed myself, and I like the pictures I took a lot. The inventor of the challenge was there. It was nice meeting him. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to see his talk at Quail Ridge Books on Tuesday.

I’m also using this post as a chance to try out a new slide show tool for Flickr pictures. It seems very nifty and easy to use. We’ll see.

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Update: Well, that slideshow totally didn’t work! Click on the picture of me and Tony to be brought to the slideshow!