IIT Madras Hosts Photography Exhibition Featuring Works by Blind Artists

A photography exhibition showcasing 50 pictures captured by blind photographers aided by sighted co-creators was hosted at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) this week.

The featured photographers, largely made up of college students from across the country, created the works during a three-day workshop held at the IIT-M campus. During the programme, the participants collaborated directly with co-creators from the department of media studies at SRM.

The exhibition featured an array of everyday perspectives and natural imagery, ranging from a beam of sunlight falling across a patch of dead leaves to a canopy of trees and a cat sunning herself.

Hemachandran Karah, an assistant professor at IIT-M and the co-founder and head of The Accessibility Research Centre, was among the participants in the workshop. He explained the physical techniques visually impaired individuals rely on to steady their devices and frame their shots without visual feedback.

Karah shared that visually impaired photographers often use their own bodies as tripods, holding a camera or phone against their forehead or chest to steady the device. Recalling one of his own photographs, Karah noted that after a rainfall, his co-creator described the scene to him. He then balanced his phone against his head to capture the sunlight breaking through tree branches alongside a hint of rain.