book details

Book: Black and White - 100 Photos By A Legally Blind Photographer by Tammy Ruggles

categories: Book, Black and White, Ansel Adams, Artist, Museum, Pictures, Coffee Table Book, Gift Book, Camera, Legally Blind, Professional, Art, Photography

Tammy Ruggles

about this book: With a simple point and shoot camera, I became a legally blind photographer. I don't have to see the details in order to take a picture of it. Just aim and click. Photography is another way of painting for me. An art form I love. My camera not only paints for me, it sees for me.

I think I know the reason I like black and white. As a visually impaired person, I see best in high contrast, dark darks and white whites, it just seems natural for me to create in that world. It's what my eyes catch first, and stands out most to me.

To me, just about anything can be a work of art. Old, new, doesn't matter. I tend to photograph my surroundings, because me travel is limited, and I just plain can't see very far away. If someone points out a pretty sunset, or a rusty old wheelbarrow, or snow-covered roof, I photograph it. Sometimes I just take a walk with my camera and start clicking, never knowing what's in the camera.

Then I take my camera back home, where I can upload my captures and try to look at them on my 47-inch monitor. When I zoom in, I have a good idea of what I've taken pictures of. Sometimes it's surprising, like wild pumpkins in the woods, or a patch of ice on a sunlit pond, or a bird on a fence.

My camera helps me see a world in a way that's impossible without it. It's probably how you would feel if you had a telescope that could bring the craters of the moon right up in front of your eyes.

In a way, you could say that my visual impairment helps create my style.