Hello Friend,

Having lost almost all of my sight (about 90%- registered blind), and after limited success with an iPad, I crazily dipped a clueless toe into photography 2 and a half years ago to try to see the flowers in our garden a bit better - dipped, slipped and fell right in! It’s all a bit tricky and my wife has to point out most of the flowers to me, initially at least.

The EVF is useless to me so I use the LCD screen and had to remove the EVF cup as the protrusion prevents me pushing my eye right on to the screen - firmly touching - which is essential relying totally on the vague, fuzzy contrast, In order to be able to see the focusing square I then have to carefully place a 20x magnifier (like a jewellers loop) on the screen and wedge it in place by pressure between camera and eye - downside it considerably reduces the visible area of screen making composing rather hit and miss. Thank goodness for cropping and straightening!

I really have next to no idea what I have until nose to the big monitor, so the upload is always a great thrill, every time, even if they are all binned. Right up close on the big screen I can make the flowers out better, not like a normal person, but better than in the garden where even the largest flowers, even with nose buried, are just fuzzy blobs and the smaller are non existent. It’s all a bit clunky but beggars can be happy even when they can’t choose.

I am lucky, my wife Julie and nature are the artists, and the garden has taken on an entirely new dimension for me. Often times I will take a photo and put it on the big screen to get a better idea of what I am trying to photograph, or I find the flower was facing the wrong way or I wasn’t photographing at all what I thought I was. I seem to get quite a few happy accidents!

For obvious reasons I do very little editing beyond cropping or straightening and use JPEG only. I went for Fuji as I can memorise dials and aperture clicks as even with the 20x, can’t read the menus and figures. My only regret, I didn’t take it up nigh 3 decades ago when I suddenly lost my sight, I just never thought such a thing would be possible, and it turns out, with patience , to a limited degree, it is. In this instance, late is definitely better than never, it gives me such pleasure, uncertainty and guesswork combined with anticipation. Quite a thrill.

The notion that someone may gain pleasure from viewing one of my photographs was an alien, unconsidered concept, so when someone takes the time to view one, fave, or comment, it truly warms my heart. Thank you and thank you for visiting my page, I hope you have a lovely life.