CCB Magazine

How do blind people take pictures? How do they use analog and digital photography? And how does society deal with blind photographers? These are the questions the documentary "Blind Photographers" aims to address. It will be financed through crowdfunding. We spoke with the director Leo Schmidt.

Interview: Jens Thomas

CCB Magazine:Hello Leo, your documentary film "Blind Photographers" is intended to be a long-term observation of blind photographers of different ages. What can blind photographers observe that photographers cannot observe with their eyes?

Leo:Blind photographers orient themselves by sounds and their sense of touch. That is why they perceive the world in a completely different way than photographers with eyesight. And they have a very special angle of vision to the photographed subject. What sighted photographer, for example, would come up with the idea of selecting his subjects based on sounds? The relationship between photographer and object is very special in "portrait shoot". If people do not feel observed, a much more intimate situation can arise. The result is often much more natural and expressive photos.

CCB Magazine:But how do blind people focus the object they want to photograph? And how are images subsequently (re)processed?

Leo:Every blind photographer - just like seeing photographers - has his own individual approach to achieve his desired results. The blind, 68-year-old photographer Evgen Bavcar from Paris, for example, uses an analog camera with special markings on the focus ring and aperture to master the technique. For objects that make noise - living beings or machines - a keen sense of hearing helps him to estimate an exact distance. Evgen became blind at the age of 13. His memory of the visual world is that of an adolescent. Therefore he often works with teenagers and benefits from their view of the world that is familiar to him. Other blind photographers work with long exposures in completely darkened rooms and expose the object manually. Others use wizards and 3D printers to produce a pre-conceptual image. For post-processing, many also use a visual interpreter.

CCB Magazine:How did you get the idea to make a film about blind photographers? And what do you want to show?

Leo:The idea came to me when I started experimenting - I took pictures of the sounds. I asked myself: Are there blind people who take pictures? And if so, how do they do it? So I started to do research. First I came across Rosita Mckanzie, a blind photographer from Scotland whom I met in person a little later in her home town of Edinburgh. Through Rosita I got to know other blind photographers. What fascinated me from the beginning was that each of these photographers had a completely different approach to photography and an individual way of working with the camera. Each one of them had to discover and reinvent photography and the handling of the camera for themselves. This is why we want to show very individual portraits of various blind artists with "Blind Photographers"; we want to accompany them in their everyday life and present them in calm, atmospheric pictures. We want to shoot in Mexico, Tibet, Great Britain and the USA.

CCB Magazine:What special stories have you experienced so far? Which people with which approaches to photography have you met?

Leo:A very exciting moment for me was when I was allowed to accompany the visually impaired photographer Jan Bölsche on a photo trip to Istanbul last year. Our accommodation was near Taksim Square, which was the center of the anti-government protests in Istanbul. On the day of our arrival, Taksim Square was forcibly evacuated. In the following days we walked across the square several times and Jan documented the beginning peaceful protest, which became known in the media as "duran adam" (standing man). His work is more than worth seeing

CCB Magazine:Jan Bölsche once said: "My eyes function more like a 1930s film camera than my digital SLR. Sometimes I'm really surprised about what I capture." What photographic results do blind photographers achieve compared to non-blind photographers? Are there qualitative differences?

Leo:In general, I would say no. Many works by blind photographers do not differ at all from those of sighted photographers - neither stylistically nor in their composition and structure. Of course, blind photographers take a different approach. They concentrate on the auditory and their sense of touch. Occasionally they need interpreters to translate the auditory into the visual. But digital photography in particular makes a lot possible today. It creates access and space for experimentation.

CCB Magazine:In Germany, there is currently an intense debate about inclusion and accessibility. At what point are we in the field of blind photography? How does society perceive blind photographers?

Leo:Blind photographers still have to overcome many hurdles in everyday life, and they often encounter a lack of understanding in their environment. But I'm sure that something will change in the next few years. Already in 2009 the Museum of Photography in California showed the works of 10 renowned blind photographers in the exhibition "Sight Unseen" - it was the first large exhibition of blind photographers in this context. The exhibition is planned to come to Europe. And in Berlin, photographers like Jan Bölsche are now giving workshops on blind photography. I see blind photographers here as mediators between the optical and audiovisual worlds. I think that the dialogue initiated by the work of visually-impaired photographers also makes an important contribution to the inclusion debate, even if we still have a long way to go. A good example of how inclusion can succeed is the Mexican city of Puebla. There, street signs at every intersection are mounted at chest height and have Braille lettering so that blind people can also find their way around. We must start with such developments. It's important that the topic is brought to the public.    

CCB Magazine:You, too, are creating a public for this topic and have chosen a crowdfunding on Indiegogo to finance the film. Why did you choose crowdfunding? And why for Indiegogo?

Leo:Crowdfunding gives us the opportunity to present our documentation to an international audience. And Indiegogo in particular is one of the largest international platforms with a clear focus on the American market. This was important to us because our topic is not only interesting for a German audience.

CCB Magazine:Many filmmakers choose crowdfunding because they feel that current film funding is insufficient. How is that with you?

Leo:We agree with that. Many good film projects simply cannot be realized today because they often fail due to the excessively high and formal requirements of state film funding. That is a pity. In a way, crowdfunding democratizes the film financing landscape: films can be financed that find their audience in advance. At the same time, of course, the pressure to have to finance films themselves is increasing. But crowdfunding is not only about money. It's also a good way to draw attention to a certain topic. We have already received positive reactions from blind photographers. In the meantime we even receive letters from blind people who would like to be in the film. And we were able to establish various contacts - especially to US companies - through the campaign. We are currently still in talks. But we hope that we will soon receive support.

CCB Magazine:You have estimated 50.000 euros for the funding. That is very much. The average value for reward-based-crowdfunding in Germany is currently 8.479 euros. What can you finance with this amount? Do you have other sources of financing?

Leo:The financing will be a combination of private funding and support for cultural/social associations and organizations. Part of the financing plan is a crowdfunding campaign with the target amount of 50,000 euros. Already last year, a fictional feature film was successfully final financed with 10,000 euros. A large part of the budget will be used for travel expenses, as we shoot internationally and want to visit our protagonists several times.

CCB Magazine:You could also have chosen a "flexible target amount" on Indiegogo, so that you can keep a partial amount if you don't reach the target amount of 50.000 euros. Instead you have chosen a fixed target amount. What do you do if you don't reach the funding target?

Leo:The absolute minimum budget for our film project is 50,000 euros. This means that we absolutely need this sum to realize the project. If we don't collect the money, we won't make the film. To make sure that everything works out, we work full-time on the campaign in a team of four people.

CCB Magazine:Who are your supporters? And how do you reach them?

Leo:We are still at the very beginning of the campaign. Therefore, our supporters are mainly those from our own networks. In the course of the campaign, with increasing public attention, much larger groups should also become aware of us.

CCB Magazine:How and in what form will you continue after the project? Where will the film run when you reach the funding goal?

Leo:As soon as the campaign has been successfully completed, shooting will begin. The first stop will be Mexico, where we will meet more protagonists. We expect the shooting to last about two years. After that, the film will go into festival exploitation and be screened at international documentary film festivals. And of course we hope to find a distributor who will bring the film to the cinema. We are already looking forward to presenting the finished film!

CCB Magazine:Leo, thank you very much for this interview and good luck!

The current crowdfunding campaign of Blind Photographers:  www.indiegogo.com/projects/blind-photographers

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Portfolio from Blind Photographers on Creative City Berlin