"The Blind": a cycle of touching photographic portraits

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Any professional photographer will agree that expressive gaze is half the success of portrait photography. Various shades of feelings, thoughts, emotions - all this can be read in the eyes of models. Here comes the London photographer Julia Fullerton-Batten decided on a bold experiment: she created a photo cycle with a "talking", almost Metterlink's name "Blind".

We have already told the readers of the site Culturology. RF about the work of Julia Fullerton-Batten. Her last photo cycle "Teenage Stories" talked about the difficulties faced by girls in their youth, but now the photographer is trying to draw public attention to the problems of visually impaired and blind people. She tries to convey the rich inner world of her models, their experiences through a specially thought-out background, special lighting. The idea of each shot was born through a discussion with the hero himself, as a result we have before us - sincere, touching and expressive photo portraits.

The people who took part in Julia Fullerton-Batten's photo project are completely different in age and educational level. Some of them are completely blind, while others are able to discern light. There are people who are blind from birth, and there are those who have lost their sight throughout life under various circumstances. Despite all these differences, the photographer was amazed at how much optimism she managed to find in each of them. They are literally in love with life and try not to notice the difficulties with which they constantly have to struggle.

Julia Fullerton-Batten came up with the idea for the photo cycle after her stepfather began to lose his sight. Then she thought about how her own life would change if she were blind: “Sight is one of the five human senses. How does it feel to be blind in whole or in part? How does it feel when you are surrounded by darkness or blurry gray silhouettes? What is worse, not to see from birth or to lose this opportunity already in adulthood? Before shooting, Julia talked a lot with the heroes of her photo cycle. Talking about their lives, these people were frank with her, and in the photographs she tried to display not only the person's appearance, but also to reveal the mystery of his soul. The series of photographs turned out to be humble, exciting and inspiring.