How blind photographers visualize the world | Hacker News Reader

How blind photographers visualize the world

photoroo.com

34 pointsadinfinite48 comments

As a blind man this sounds like a load of BS to me! I have bin blind from berth and would have know want or need to invest all this time on something I can not see to enjoy the end product. How would you know which pics arr the rite ones? How can you show them to people when you cant even know what is on the piece of paper you are holding in your hand. If you put a pile of 10 pieces of paper in my hand and marked a line on one piece then I could not pick it out. Blind people can not be photographers. Now if you are telling me that they are low vision then that changes things but fully blind just know! I bet most of the pics are shit any, but know one wants to say. As a blind person you get this all the time. They lie to you and say well dun in a baby voice.

I go to the gym and lift Weights: and people think it is so cool that a blind person can stand in one spot and lift Weights. It pisses me off no end! "O you are so good for what you do!" No mate I am just a blind dude that wants to stay healthy and not get fat. well fatter any way lol.

I mien how hard is it to just lift a Weight bar some of the dumbest people I know are gym rats.

Sorry about my spelling.

Could you describe into words how your mind works, how imagery is rendered in your mind’s eye and how you perceive the world around you? Also, do you have a mind’s eye like non aphantasiacs do? I suspect not all blind people perceive the world in the same way just like the non blind.

OK here goes. Pleas don't mind the spelling.

I was born with glaucoma and had both my eyes removed when I was 2.5 years old.

I cant remember being able to see, but I can remember wearing verry thick glasses. They made my nose ake.

I cant remember what things look like or cullers.

If someone asked me to think about something like a beach I would think about how it would feel under my hands - feet to be on the sand, the sound of the see and the smell of the see. I would all so think about the feel of wind and sun on my skin. Because you have to be in motion to feel things with your hands I would think about all this as if I was walking a cross it. If I am asked to picture somthing simple like a cup or a plate I will remember what one feels like in my hands. When I have dreams I have ones that have all the other censes in them but no site. I have verry strong emotions in them and some dreams can stick with me for a long time. It's strange as I am not like that in my waking life. I don't think that has anything to do with me being blind though.

O yeah just to add. When people talk about cullers I will think about things that are linked to the culler. Like a banana for yello. this because this is all the word yellow means to me. So when some one says the word yellow I will think about what a banana feels like and the same with orange.

I feel very similarly when I have my eyes closed, I imagine things and objects but I see blackness. Hard to put into words but it’s like I feel it, be it shapes or colors.

How do you like reading very descriptive passages? I have a hard time conjuring up and connecting to a scene that has too many details, but my blind imagination doesn’t fail to feel any gaps for things more open ended.

I imagine there are different perception modes for various blind folks and that there’s a lot of variety in it as well.

Thanks for saying this. Even seeing this title makes me immediately think surely blind people model the world, but they don't visualize it, just like my mental model doesn't involve the way matter interacts with radio.

Heh, I noticed there's no image gallery with the post. As a disabled person myself, this trite puppy-care is really not great.

Edit: I found some. The photos are actually pretty great.

And yes, they are not blind, they are vision impaired. Never understood why people call that blind, seems a bit shitty to people who are actually completely blind.

I'm not a paraplegic just because my knees hurt when I walk.

https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/06/30/check-out-blind-phot...

There is also this recently discovered phenomena of aphantasia which is fascinating. Lot of people dont have mental images and grow up not even aware that others can form such images. Here's one interesting account.

https://m.facebook.com/nt/screen/?params=%7B%22note_id%22%3A...

I discovered I have this by reading an article about it in Scientific American.

It completely blew my mind. I thought “visualizing” was a figure of speech, and was shocked to realize that people actually form images in their mind.

I’m also a photographer, and pre-visualizing shots in my mind doesn’t happen the way I’ve heard others describe their process. I immerse myself in the scene, taking everything in as fully as I can while moving around until I experience the shot/composition I want.

This turned into a kind of mindfulness for me that has led to a much deeper appreciation of the natural beauty everywhere. I do wonder what’s it’d be like to visualize, but lacking this ability has been interesting in its own way.

As as painter with aphantantasia myself I have a similar experience to yours and do find my own experience to be interesting and not lacking in any way, though it’s impossible to make the comparsion to non aphantasiacs. I feel that I do have an imagination and mind’s eye in my own way somehow connected to intuition, hard to describe into words but it’s like there’s a vail that obstructs the minds eye but I can feel what’s behind it. When I paint I am excited to see what emerges as if the veil is slowly dissolving.

One thing that I have a hard time with as an aphantasiac is mostly reading books with extensive descriptive imagery, lots of minitious details…

I tend to skip descriptive imagery, and prefer books that give more play to ideas.

I've also written two novels (self-published sci-fi) and one of the "benefits" of self-publishing was that I got to make the commercially stupid (but it's not like self-published niche sci fi would ever sell all that much; if I was writing for the money I'd write something more commercial and submit it to a trad publisher) decision of ignoring my editor when she made "suggestions" about the amount of exposition.

She was right to raise it. There's "too much". I know there is, and it's there because I that is what I love reading. But I suspect that is in large part exactly because without seeing images when I read less abstract parts of the books, I'm not used to the world building etc. taking "time away" from the visuals because they don't to me.

Yeah, with more open ended descriptions my blind imagination has no problem filling out any gaps. When I was younger I was frustrated and kept at it but to no avail. When I found out there was a time writers were paid per words / volume I became very selective in what I read. If it didn’t jive I’d skip. If the whole book was like that I’d skip entirely.

As a writer you should be true to yourself with the downside that your work would only cater to likeminded people and aside from not having larger audiences I see no probelm in that. Trying to be something you’re not is not fruitful

Yeah, I'm fortunate enough to have a good job and write mostly because I enjoy it, and it's liberating to not have to listen (though sometimes it's worth thinking through of it's because of preference or ego).

I can't imagine trying to make a living from it - it's an incredibly tough business.

You don't need to make living from it but you can live through it. Best way to develop yourself into the person you're supposed to be. Once money comes into the picture it messes everything up.

One of the things that kept me from pursuing art as a hobby was my skill of drawing couldn't match the detail and fidelity of the image in my head I wanted to draw, frustrating and discouraging me. With aphantasia, how was your experience starting out?

I started painting accidentally more or less. I have to say my experience was empowering and boundless on an imaginary scale. I enter flow state so easily at this point but the first time I stumbled onto it I painted for 12 hours straight and I didn’t feel tired nor did I feel excited about what I produced, I was just calm and pleased with the experience - it felt like a therapeutic purge. The second time I attempted to do it I failed and felt frustrated. Eventually I understood how to enter that ‘door’ and started preparing before each session. Once in a while Im not in the right state of mind and I stop the session, find something else to do with my time.

Another painter told me this is a known thing and he described an exerice he was showing his students: take a piece of paper, a pencil and draw circles of any kinds, small circles, large circles, circumscribed circles, most likely the shape doesn’t matter but the repetitive mindless action. He said in half an hour or so you’d want add something to that shape, then add something else after which one can let go of the exercise and just let the flow take over. Never tried the exercise myself but I see it working. When I paint I have my own preparation ritual.

This works in other areas such as programming, though the experience is slightly different.

With afantasia though I found that what’s what’s holding me back is picturing other peoples code model in my head and often I feel a map would help.

Same here. Also thought it was a figure of speech. Though I often think of myself as visualizing things, it's more of a spatial awareness and recollection of attributes, never actually visual.

I’m soooo curious what that’s like!! Can you recall memories as pictures or movies? My memory is totally visual so I’m really curious how recall works for people who can’t visualize things? How do you remember stuff??

I can't see anything in my "minds eye". I've always tended to remember abstract concepts better than visual descriptions when I read books, and similarly remember concepts for more than imagery when I watch movies. Though at the same time, when I remember what something looks like, even though I can't see it I can often sketch it out. Things I'm familiar with I can if anything sketch out more precisely than average - my spatial reasoning is very good (I don't think that's connected, but just to say that it's good enough that there's no indication it's negatively affected by not being able to picture things).

I realise how hard it is to imagine in that if I try to describe it I reach for examples that makes sense to me because I don't "see" things. E.g. "if you hold up your hand, how do you know what's behind it?" or "how do you know where things are in your house in the dark?" makes total sense to me, because I know what's there even if I can't picture it in my head.

I also do see things in my mind when I dream, so I know what it's like. In addition I've had one experience while meditating (it could be I fell asleep and had a lucid dream) where I saw imagery that was far clearer than what I remember of my dreams.

Even that part is odd, though, because I can't "see" the memory of that imagery or my dreams either, but I remember qualities of it.

(I have tried recreating that moment, and I now occasionally try to "nudge" things to see if it's possible to trigger something, without much luck, but clearly it's possible for me to see things in my minds eye, but whether it's something I can unlock in a waking state I have no clue)

Also wondering if aphantasiacs have trouble with imagining voices, sounds, music. Do they ever get songs stuck in their head?

This stuff is hard to describe. I can't visualize, and I can't hear a monologue in my head. I do have a monologue in my head, to some degree, but I don't actually hear anything. I just know it's going on and what's being said. Same with earworms. I hear songs in my head as if they are vibrating through a door down a long corridor or something. It can be just as annoying and just as hard to get rid of, though.

As for visualization, I can "picture" my living room, but when I try it's as if I'm walking through it with no light at all, but I'm familiar enough with it to know where to step because I know where everything is, more or less, and what I would be seeing if someone would turn on the light, i.e the couch is over there and if I'm not careful I'm going to step on the charger I left on the floor.

I didn't find out I was an aphant until my 50s. I thought "visualizing a beach" was a figment of speech. I assumed they meant thinking of it, not seeing it. Being alone in my head is like sitting in a quiet room with the lights off and is what I consider "normal". It's lead me to think that everyone has a lot of things happening on different internal "cpu cores" because this lack of stimulus makes it much more clear to me when ideas or solutions just pop into my head from some other part of me.

Can you do visual hypotheticals? Like if I asked you to, say, imagine an apple with black and white zebra-striped skin, could you tell me if it would look appetizing or not? If asked to imagine a crocodile wearing a wig, could you tell me what hairstyle the wig has?

I can't really tell in either case. I can't see the apple, but it would depend on just how the zebra stripes look whether I would find it tasty or not. I can think of the idea of it, but not the details. As for the crocodile wearing a wig, that's literally what I think. "A crocodile wearing a wig". No visual. If I had to draw it I'd have to figure that out. The typical "think of a beach" turns into a quick one liner I'd give an artist to work from ("sunset on a beach with someone walking along the water line" or whatever).

I get songs stuck in my head, but I don't imagine other peoples voices, nor do I "hear" sounds of instruments or similar - if I imagine music I imagine myself humming it.

But these things appear to not be directly linked - far more people have no voice in their head than have issues seeing things (about 2% or so see nothing). Similarly I was shocked to realise that a lot of people have no internal monologue or conversation - I have a constant monologue going in my head my ever waking moment other than when I suppress it with meditation.

Here's an interesting article that addresses some of these additional aspects [1], and which interestingly fall in the same trap of assuming their experience is universal when they write:

> The idea of an internal dialogue – rather than a monologue – will be familiar to anyone who’s ever rehearsed an important conversation, or rehashed an argument, in their mind.

But that is not true for me. I rehearse pretty much every conversation I know will happen, but the other side is always silent. I know what I think they'd answer and I practice my side, but there's no voice - mine or others - voicing the rest.

For others there is, and for some whole discussions with multiple different voices can happen (sometimes that can indicate a mental health problem, but usually that boils down to whether they're intrusive or beyond your control)

[1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190819-what-your-inner-...

I have a bad visual memory. But when I remember things, instead of seeing things, it’s a general sense of knowing, and at times a sense of feeling.

If you asked me what it was like on the beach last weekend, I could tell you it was sandy, there was a vivid sunset, and there were a lot of people. I don’t see these things, I just know them.

If you asked me to describe the sunset in more detail, I might recall moments that stood out to me (there was this moment when the sun was creating this mile-long reflection from a building on the other side of the water), but that highlight is separate from the general recollection of the experience, i.e. it doesn’t come from looking back at the sunset itself, it’s an independent thing that stands out in my mind about the experience.

I don’t believe I actually “hear” sounds/my inner dialog, but sounds are easier to work with in my head. I’m musically inclined, and good at improvising on the piano. But I think the sounds I “hear” are closer to a reflection of the feelings I feel when hearing those sounds.

This is hard to describe, but if I wanted to intentionally imagine a melody, I can almost feel it in the back of my throat, as if my imagination of the sound is the feeling of what it’d be like to make that sound with my own voice.

I do get songs stuck in my head, but within this framework of imagining the feelings associated with the sounds.

I used to think I could hear these sounds, but closer observation over the years since I realized I have visual Aphantasia has revealed that it’s not so clear-cut. In the same way I thought I was “visualizing” by bringing feelings/knowledge about something to the surface.

I have an over-active internal dialog, but this also seems to manifest as some kind of reflection of the feelings associated with the thoughts. I understand the thoughts I’m thinking, but they’re more ephemeral than a voice.

I have this thing when often I recall a visual representation of something I have somewhere randomly seen looking at it subconsciously after someone is looking for it.

Just today a colleague was looking for AA batteries and told me we have none. An image of a 20 pack of green AA batteries laying on a white-grey shelf popped up in my head, I had no idea where or when I saw it but I knew it was real.

I checked three shelves of similar color with similar light conditions and there it was, a 20 pack of green AA batteries.

It's hard to describe the "image" I "see", it is very focused on the center of the image and the information is progressively "lost" towards the edges of the image, as if there was no edge to it like in real photos or virtual pictures. (kinda like vignette but with information)

The thing is, I tend to remember very specific details of what things look like even though I can't see them at all.

In fact, I pointed out on another thread that I'm very fuzzy about the layout of code and things like syntax highlighting because my memory of code is largely driven by remember "visual" shapes of methods etc., even though I can't actually see them when they're not in front of me.

So the recall appears to be largely decoupled from actually seeing the images.

Interestingly, my recall appears to be more "abstract" and "cleaned up". E.g. I remember vividly (notice how often these words pop up, and I use them all the time myself, but just remember when I use them I use them in a more abstract sense) an exercise in art class at school where we were given the task of first drawing our shoes without looking under the desk, and then we were told to take a shoe off and put it in front of us and draw it.

I can remember clearly how the two drawings looked, but can't see them. The one I drew from memory had clear, firm lines, and was very precise, and the shading and shadows were idealised. It looked like a cartoon-shoe in a way - it was too tidy and clean to be the "real thing". The one I drew with my shoe in front of me had messy lines and shadows that reflected the light of the room at the time, and was far closer to an impressionist drawing. It was marginally closer to the real thing, but it wasn't "better" as art, just a very different style.

But the important bit to me is that in retrospect it's a demonstration that my recall of visual memories is there, and I can access them even if I can't see them.

I'm confused, I can "visualize" images in my head, memories or new things both. I know how everything fits together, I can have this "image" even with my eyes open. I can draw them, recall details and context. However, when I close my eyes I see dark perlin noise and nothing else. So maybe it is figure of speech?

Here's a visual test, but before clicking just imagine a red five-pointed star:

https://curingaphantasia.com/free-aphantasia-test/

The only way I can make new things with my eyes open is to draw them. I’ve come to rely on visualization tools to help make sense of ideas. I love endless canvas tools like Miro because I can actually work with ideas. When I close my eyes, I see #1.

Eyes open vs. eyes closed are two vastly different modes for the brain to operate in.

It seems that so much of what we see is based on context, it makes some sense that a fully populated visual field would provide more anchors for thought/visualization.

Depending on where you fall on the visualization spectrum, some people have reported the ability to improve their visualization abilities by practicing “Image Streaming” [0], which to me looks like a form of attention training/mindfulness.

Editing to add: that site rubs me a bit the wrong way. He’s selling memberships to content that claims to “cure” Aphantasia, but we don’t even understand how Aphantasia works, or if having it is even a “bad” thing. In any case, it seems wise not to limit your exploration to this particular site.

- [0] https://photographyinsider.info/image-streaming-for-photogra...

Even before clicking your link I imagined a red five-pointed star. With my eyes open it looked like image number 6, except the five points where a bit longer/sharper angle.

Closing my eyes (also before clicking your link) resulted in something equivalent to 4.

I'm firmly a 1.

A few years ago, my wife and I figured out she has aphantasia. Suddenly, it made sense why she has trouble with navigating, why I have to draw things for her so often rather than just explaining the shapes of the various parts and how they fit together, and also why she finds reading most books so boring.

When she reads a book, any description of how things look just goes in one ear and out the other. When walking around a city, she can't overlay a mental map over what she's seeing.

On the other hand, I've always had good 3D mental visualization, likely part of why I was drawn to Mechanical Engineering.

I have aphantasia, but significantly above average spatial reasoning. I'm not convinced those things are straightforwardly connected.

Same. My brother doesn't have aphantasia, but he has some kind of "spatial dyslexia" as we call it. Not diagnosed, he just has really hard time thinking about spatial stuff, drawing and writing (related to the form of his "typeface", not to spelling).

These aren’t necessarily related.

I have aphantasia (am aphantastic?) but have a great sense of direction, and think very spatially. Just not with pictures or lines in a “mind’s eye”, as people call it.

I like using the word "aphant" to describe myself in this context.

"On the other hand, I've always have good 3D mental visualization"

It is also a difference between the sexes

https://news.emory.edu/stories/2019/04/esc_gender_gap_spatia...

although some studies claim women are just as good but use different strategies that take longer:

https://neurosciencenews.com/spatial-cognition-sexes-15576/

possibly related:

https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/intelligent-people-slower-so...

This article is great[1]

> Ed Catmull, 74, has the condition aphantasia, in which people cannot visualise mental images at all.

> And in a surprising survey of his former employees, so do some of the world's best animators.

[1] "Aphantasia: Ex-Pixar chief Ed Catmull says 'my mind's eye is blind'" -- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47830256

I wonder how many things like this there are. I have two that I am aware of. Musical anhedonia (a neurological condition characterized by an inability to derive pleasure from music) and I never dream while sleeping (I’ve never heard a name for this). In this case though, I am aware that others do have an emotional response to music and that others do dream while sleeping.

Having entirely non-verbal thoughts is another one that tends to freak those of us who incessant monologues out. Some both don't think verbally and have aphantasia.

What does the link say? (for people without facebook account)

It's quite long, and fascinating. I'm able to view it in a private browser tab, so I don't think it requires an account.

Is there a way to listen to the actual content? This is only a brief summary of the radio show.

Description intriguing but not much detail available at link.

Would be interesting to actually be able to see this. But alas I'm a little bit too far from Walnut Creek

one weird thing that I found out is that not everyone has an internal monologue

something my younger self could not shut up - not so now, I've learnt to control it

Deciding to repost this as a top-level comment because it has more info about the show and 4 images:

https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/06/30/check-out-blind-phot...

I like the photos. Feels very different from other photographers. Not photoshopped and no fancy things, but the emotion is still there.

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