A Blind Photographer's Visions

Photographer Sonia Soberats was living in Queens, NY and had a life like many other immigrant woman. In 1986 her life changed, her daughter was diagnosed with a deadly disease and in 1991 her son died. Three years later her daughter passed on. Then eventually she went blind after suffering from glaucoma.

Soberats takes this pain and creates photographs capturing life’s events such as births, marriages, and deaths.

Soberats began taking photography classes in 2001 and began using photography as therapy and as a way to express her emotions. She works with an assistant who helps her arrange the models. She speaks to her models asking them questions about their appearance so she can get an idea of how she wants to photograph them. Her assistant opens the shutter which can remain open from minutes to an hour. She crawls around forgetting she is blind and when you look at her photos you'll forget she is blind also.

She just had her first solo exhibition called Vision Intransferible, at the Centro de Arte La Estancia. Back in New York she works with Seeing with PhotographyCollective or SWPC. This is a group of visually impaired photographers, some visually impaired and some totally blind. 

Soberats is the subject of a new documentary titled, El Labertino de lo Posible, by director Wanadi Siso. It will explore the lives blind individuals who have had to overcome challenges life has given them.



Watch videos below about the project.

http://www.seeingwithphotography.com/member_sonia_images.html

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/visions-of-a-blind-photographer/