Craig Royal

Meet Craig Royal. Craig, a legally blind photographer from Florida, is inaugurating our new monthly series of featured photographers. Each month, Blind Photographers will present a member of our community with images and an interview.

BP:  Tell us a little about yourself.

CR: Being creative has been a major impulse in my life since my teenage years. I earned a BFA in crafts from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1982. I had concentrated in woodworking furniture design. In 1983 I was awarded a professional fellowship from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. From 1983 to 1990 I had exhibited fine woodworking in galleries in the Mid-Atlantic and Pacific Northwest. From 2000 to 2007 I had dabbled in stone and mixed media sculpture.

A Blinding Light 5: On Flickr I have a set titled Visual Impairment Abstracts that attempt to represent my visual impairment. "A Blinding Light 5" is a radial blur of parking lot markings that was achieved with photoshop. By placing the centerpoint in the right place an eye shape will appear and a lens flair is added to represent my white blind spot.

BP: What brought you into photography?

CR: My interest in photography started in 2007. Being frustrated with visual impairment, a lack of patience and poor concentration my creative interests shifted from three dimensions to two dimensions. With photography the results where more immediate and I could rely on the cameras ability to focus instead of relying on my eyes, which was quite liberating.

BP: What equipment and techniques do you use?

CR: I shoot with a Nikon D90 and use Photoshop to edit and manipulate images. In oder to see the computer screen I use a 4x telescope mounted on a frame similar to what surgeons use while operating. I have enough usable vision to use the cameras viewfinder.

BP:What is your visual impairment?

Killing Time To Live In the Moment: "Killing Time To Live In the Moment" is one of my philosophical creations that is a composite of three different images layered together.

CR: I have a congenital form of optic atrophy and have been legally blind since birth. My vision had been 20/200 corrected up until 1992 when a white blind spot developed in the center of the visual field in both eyes. After the blind spot stabilized my vision was, and currently is, 20/400. My peripheral vision is blurred so I miss out on a lot of detail and has an impressionist quality about it. The white blind spot adds a surreal element.

BP: How do you think your images are affected by your eyesight?

Apart from trying to express my visual reality by way of a visual art form my desire to see more of the detail that surrounds me, though it being after the fact, plays a part in my choices of subject matter. Being very nearsighted I am not drawn to landscape photography.

BP: How do you ‘see’ photography’?

CR: Due to my nearsightedness I see photography closeup. On another level it is a visual aide. On a deeper level it satisfies the Muse.

Persona: Water is a favorite subject of mine. Especially reflections on water. I found by shooting at a slow shutter speed the light reflection will expand and take on a three dimensional look. I have a particular location where I stand and take 300 to 400 shots and once uploaded on to the computer I'll go through them to see if anything catches my imagination. "Persona" is an example where the profile of faces are suggested in the reflections. I will manipulate the image if need be in order to make it more obvious.

Craig has a profile here on BP. You can also find him on Flickr.

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This entry was posted on March 7, 2010 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Feature, Featured Photogrpaher, our photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.