Dark Light: The Art of Blind Photographers

Dark Light opens with some remarks from a few blind artists telling us what photography means to them: “It’s really just an excuse to focus my mind on an idea and find out about what’s around me.” “I do it, because I love it. And I work at it. And it’s always like seeing it for the first time.” “My joy was really the moment of shooting the picture.” The sentiment of the film is summarized by this statement: “There’s a lot of blind artists out there, but blind artists moving into a visual art field is a new thing. We’re cutting a new path.” Next, three well-known professional photographers, David Burnett, Mary Ellen Mark and James Nachtwey, expound on photography, and their belief in the necessity of the eye in the process. Mark bluntly sums up their collective opinion: “I don’t see how one can be a blind photographer.”