[Check the update…]<\/b><\/p>\n
Flipping to the California section<\/a>, I was greeted by a photo of our friend, Michael Richard, and one of his photographs. He’s becoming an acclaimed abstract photographer, specializing in images based in urban cityscapes.<\/p>\n And he’s legally blind.<\/p>\n Richard, whose primary occupation is as a musician, had specialized in nature photography before surgery in early 2002 to remove a malignant tumor left him sightless in his right eye. Born with a condition called acute amblyopia that made his left eye basically nonfunctional, he suddenly found himself unable to see anything distinctly.<\/p>\n \nFor a visual artist, it was devastating.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Richard could only make out shapes with his left eye. Objects in front of him were ethereal and diffused, as if viewed through glass smeared with petroleum jelly.<\/p>\n \n“It’s like the world is a very Impressionistic painting,” he said. “Only the broadest of lines are shown \u2014 it’s like the most extreme soft-focus photo that you can imagine.”<\/p>\n \nSo he wasn’t expecting much when he enrolled in the photo class taught by former Life magazine photographer Jack Birns.<\/p>\n \n“I was anticipating that this was going to be a joke,” Richard said. “How can the blind take pictures?”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Since his class, Michael has participated in six or seven shows, at increasingly prominent galleries. I was talking about him with a friend who’s a painter, and her response was a mixture of astonishment and envy.<\/p>\n She should be jealous, his work is damn good.<\/p>\n TG and I have watched Michael and his wife Patrice as they faced the hardships and anxiety that came with Michael’s illness. And I have been filled with admiration for their resilience, determination, and optimism.<\/p>\n Michael and his band played at our wedding, and he told me he was happy to be a part of our day of joy. Today, I’m happy to read such a public acknowledgement of his deserved success.<\/p>\n Update:<\/b><\/p>\n The article doesn’t mention that Michael will have photos in a huge photography exposition later this month (January 20-23 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium). He’ll be part of the “View From Here” booth with several other visually impaired photographers. Here’s a link for more info…<\/a>]<\/b> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A blind photographer? Armed Liberal knows one…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}