An Evolving Appreciation for Photography

Photography is a wonderful, visual medium. I have enjoyed it since I was a little girl running around the neighborhood with my Brownie camera.

The days of film

Those were the days you had to hide in a dark closet to load your camera with real film. Then, when you had exposed the whole roll, you took it to the drug store to send away to be developed. A week or so later, you would get back your photos... and a developing bill. As a child, my shutter happy tendencies were hemmed in by how much my mother was willing to pay for my “masterpieces”. Some of them prominently featured my thumb or some other intruding object.

Fast-forward to digital cameras

Fast forward to the age of digital photography. These days we don’t have to mess with chemically-based film or drug-store drop-offs.

We don’t even have to pay for photos of our thumbs! Digital cameras - including the ones in our phones - give us an immediate view of the photo we took and even give us the option of deleting it. If we don’t choose to do so, we no longer have to go to the expense of printing them out. Is it any wonder digital cameras and photography are being put to so many, new uses?

Cameras and VIPs

Just because it is a visual medium, please don’t think we visually challenged types cannot use it. My cameras play a big role in my life as a VIP (visually impaired person).

I have already mentioned taking photos of signs I cannot read and enlarging them on my phone. The feedback is immediate and it costs me nothing to do. Later, down the road, I can delete them.

The trend in Colorado restaurants seemed to be using QR codes for their menus. Remember QR codes are those squares with other squares and designs inside. While this only works with a smartphone, taking a photo of the QR code will allow you to view the menu. Your smartphone camera will then allow you to zoom the menu making it easier for us VIP types to read.

Other uses

But cameras and photography don’t just let me read things. They also allow me to view and participate in my world.

For example, near Denver, it appeared the prairie dogs hang out at the Walmart. My friend, also an Easterner, tried to point them out to me. Seeing little, brown rodents on a brown landscape was impossible for my bare eyes so I pointed the camera in the general direction and took the photo.

The prairie dogs remained elusive, but this point-in-the-general-direction and pray technique proved fruitful at other times. I had a vague image of a rock climber going up a “chimney” in the Garden of the Gods. Pointing in the general direction - with autofocus on, of course! - with my telescopic lens on my camera and I ended up with a great, or at least good, photo. Hearing gravel falling from the cliff, I pointed in the general direction and got a photo of mountain goats I knew were there but could not see.

Continuing to enjoy photography

I have always enjoyed taking photos. With the new technology, practical things such as photos of menu boards have become a logical and essentially free option. It has also become possible to use my camera to reclaim some of the sights and experiences my vision loss has taken away. Pointing my camera into the blur that is my vision can show me the world again.