Images Without Sight

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Nellie Love

Dear Friends,

On Wednesday morning, January 5, my retired Seeing Eye dog Nellie suddenly became very ill and collapsed as I was getting ready for work. As Bjorn and I rushed her to our vet clinic in West Seattle I was in shock as she has been so healthy, happy and full of joy.

We learned she had a mass behind her heart that had ruptured and Nellie was bleeding internally -- there was nothing to do but have her put to sleep.

She was my second dog after Louise worked here at Bellevue College. Nellie was a little (?) ADHD, a lot energetic and social and very petite with mostly hair apricot in color until her stroke 7 years ago when I retired her. At that point she began turning completely white! She loved her retirement and thrived at home.

Many of you had a special connection with Nellie: she knew how to work a room like no other dog I have ever known …. She befriended many of you and was honored at one of President Jean Floten’s end of the year speeches upon her retirement, picture and all.

My heart is heavy with grief, but that little girl dog did more to comfort and guide me in her 13 years than family members could ever have hoped to do in the same amount of time passed.

May her spirit live on in those who knew her.

Susan Gjolmesli

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Where Journeys Take Us

Susan: As I grow older the winters seem to bring with them restlessness and a malcontent that annoys my spirit. I was less inclined in winter to engage in photography though I did try on several occasions to learn the “shooting in the dark” concept. My first attempts took countless patience on my part -- lining up the object of my desire to shoot.

Then there was the tripod. Was it pointing the correct way? Was the distance right? Did it tilt just so? I’d go over and over the space and angles with my fingers and hands until I would be literally dizzy. Then I would put the cardboard spacer in the camera lever to insure the lens remained open as I bathed the object in light with a bright flashlight. The last step was to ever so carefully pull the wedge out of the lever so the camera would take the photo and I could then advance the film.

To my dismay the first roll of film did not turn out; operator error I hate to admit. When I tried again I knew what to do and felt I had some incredible shots. You do not want to know what happened to that film. I wrapped it in foil for my partner in blog (Tess) to pick up and take to the darkroom ... and someone mistook it for trash (aurgh!) and dumped it!!!

I was devastated, so much so that I just couldn’t bring myself to “shoot in the dark” for a while after that.

I think in another few weeks I will be able to experiment with this medium once more. Truly…I learned a good lesson about where I leave my film for pickup. . . .

(To be continued.)

Susan Gjolmesli

Thursday, July 15, 2010

The Swainson's Thrush

Sidewalk with spiked wrought iron railing.

Me: Here are more of the photos from Florida and Louisana Susan shot on her trip there.

The film that was fogged by airport X-ray scanners.

Film I scanned instead of enlarging. Louisiana reliquary? maybe a chimney, maybe an entrance, all scrabbled brick.

Louisiana reliquary? maybe a chimney, maybe an entrance, all scrabbled brick.

I'm choosing again to share the images as they appeared with the default scan settings; I find the rosy tone appealing and also very characteristic of Susan.

For some reason, when I saw these images I thought of the Swainson's Thrush. This is a bird I've never seen in person, although I hear it in the forest when I am hiking.

Inez in a double exposure in front of wrought iron railing.

It has the resonance and breathiness of a wooden flute, usually beginning mid-range with a single note held a few breaths, followed by some experimental trilling. Then the song takes off, trilling mordents on a rising scale finally reaching a few exhuberent finish notes, sometimes followed by a self-satisfied whirring.

This song always intrigues me with its hollow notes that have so much timber and airflow. I hear the notes just long enough to be intrigued by them, then I am taken away as the mordents float up and up into the trees.

You can hear a Swainson's Thrush here: at the MacCaulay Library of the Cornell Institute of Ornithology.

That's my metaphor for today's images. Beauty can be shared and experienced in many different ways. I don't have to see it to enjoy it, or I might even see something different than you do.

But we both share in the enjoyment.

Cheers! More photos to come soon.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

X-Ray Vision

gulf coast mission-style buildings harking back to the 1930s, or even 1800s.

Susan took a trip to the Gulf coast not too long ago, visiting both Florida and Louisana.

When I processed the film she had shot, it came out of the tank uniformly dark and gray ("fogged" is the photographic term). Most likely this was due to the rolls being pre- exposed by the X-ray scanners at the airport.

This led me to ponder how best to entice the images from the film. I was short on funds and so did not want to waste paper and time in the darkroom. I decided to go high-tech and scan the negatives rather than print the film manually.

I thought scanning would give me some control over the contrast and clarity of the images, without having to waste a lot of expensive paper. Plus, the college has a high-end Epson negative scanner that I've always wanted to try out and I now had an excuse to ask for permission to use it.

I used the default settings for the scanning software, and the negatives were output as .jpg images, with a soft rosy tone. Above is the first image, after I rendered it as grayscale.

Here is the same image with the default settings.

the same gulf-coast mission style buildings with a rosy tint.

I do prefer the rose-tinting.

Rose-colored glasses, and all that.

I'll post more of the scanned negatives soon.

Tess

Friday, February 19, 2010

Beauty of Intent

Rachel and four-legged friends. treat time?

Me: The many different definitions of "Art" I have found all define art in different ways. There are some common threads. One is the component of intent: the artist has intentionally created a piece to elicit an emotion or reaction within the viewer.

A second common thread is a notion of indirection: the viewer, through their experience of the object, comes up with their own idea of what the artist's message is.

This project was created with the intent to inspire thought. It is different from some projects in that it encourages a large element of discovery and accident. Probably the most surprising component for me is that as one-half of the team I have found myself to be a viewer as well as an artist. I have had "ah ha" experiences I didn't expect to have.

I wonder if that is a third, less obvious, goal of art: that the artist too be transformed through the creation of their art.

You who are reading this now must have a certain reaction -- either to the photographs, the ideas they express, or to the blog or the notion or nature of the blog.

We are very curious to know what your personal responses have been.

When you have a moment, please submit a comment sharing your experiences.

What Motivates a Photographer?

One might think only a sighted person would be interested in photography, because they could see the outcome of their efforts. When I (a sighted person) started shooting in the dark using a Holga, I quickly began to enjoy the process of shooting itself. I found it challenging to think of new situations to shoot and new photographic possibilities. It was a challenge, also, to stumble around in the dark -- setting up my subject and determining how far it was from the camera lens. The pictures were almost second to this experience. So, Susan and I share a common interest.

Susan was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa when she was a child. She cannot see. If we are sitting by a window, Susan can tell there is light in that partof her vision, but beyond that she cannot discriminate by sight. Over the years even this ability has dimmed.

Susan navigates the larger world with the help of her Seeing Eye Dog, Inez, who is a happy and comic Golden Retriever. Nellie, Susan's retired Seeing Eye Dog, also lives at home. Both dogs figure prominently in Susan's life and their personalities come through in the photos on these pages.

Susan describes how she sets up a shoot: She walks around the set and feels everything for its relationship to the other subjects she wishes to capture. She walks back and forth to determine the distance to the subject and her ideal focal setting, and then snaps the picture.

If she is with someone, she might ask them what they see and then shoot with that information in mind.

What is motivating Susan to participate in this project? What motivates her as a photographer?

Susan describes herself as seeing in images, even if she can't see images the way I see images. She loves color, texture, and dimension. And she loves solving problems. To her, setting up a shoot is a challenge that she wants to meet. She meets each challenge with enjoyment and verve. I get the sense that the process might even be more important than the outcome.

Bio: Susan Gjolmesli

Susan Gjolmesli is the photographer for this project. She was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa at the age of ten and navigates her world with the aid of a Seeing Eye dog, Inez. She is an avid gardener and was formerly a floral designer. Put that in your kettle of "preconceived notions."

Susan is Director of the Disability Resource Center at Bellevue College in Bellevue, Washington where she was recently named by the college as a Living Treasure. Her office works with students so they have access to classrooms, libraries, media and resources. Not only does the office provide physical assistance for classroom participation, they offer technology to translate traditional academic materials into media which can be consumed by the student. Technologies include scanners, braille printers, screen readers, mobile pda/scanners, personal media devices, text enlargers, and screen magnifiers, among others. The office serves as an advocate for students and an educational resource for the campus.

Susan is often called upon to present at events both on and off campus; she is a spoken advocate for equal rights. It would be trite to say that she has long been an advocate of the disabled. More to the point, she has worked to educate us as to how narrow-minded our view of the world can be -- inasmuch as we view people who are blind or deaf or require the aid of assistive devices as being "disabled."

Susan would be the last person to describe herself as disabled. In fact, the ability that she cannot see has empowered her in so many other ways that we take for granted.

Susan is also a writer, and her opinions may make you think twice about your own. Read her article,"You Shouldn't Have Any Children and Other Forms of Blindness."

You can also explore the Disability Resource Center at Bellevue College to see what these folks do to enable students to succeed. Software, hardware, technology, advice, support, and advocacy are all available to help students interact with what the majority of us think of as a "traditional" classroom.

Bio: Tess McMillan

This is an Independent Study Art Project I began while a student on scholarship at Bellevue College. Since graduating, I confess I don't really spend much time in a studio; I've become more of an office drone. However, I will never lose the appreciation for light that I gained through this project. It has been transformational.

It was while working with the Holga that I discovered my own love of shooting in the dark, illuminating my subjects by painting them with various kinds of light. People often think of photography as capturing something that exists at a given moment. I prefer to build my photographs using subjects that don't or can't exist together at any given moment.

As we concentrate more and more on technology, I see schools giving less emphasis to the study of art. This, in my opinion, is causing an entire generation of students to lose out in learning new ways of thinking, problem-solving, and seeing the world.