[accessibleimage] Hear and you will see article blind photographer

New Straits Times (Malaysia)
Thursday, June 23, 2005

Hear and you will see 

By LOKE POH LIN

S.Y. Leong instinctively clicks away with his camera, capturing insightful and almost surreal pictures. Leong is blind but he hears, feels and 'sees' with his mind. LOKE POH LIN is enraptured by his works. 

NO, I'm not writing a piece about the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. I'm 
going to write about a man - husband, father, office worker, mentor, masseuse 
and now photographer - who is about to stage his first exhibition. Nothing that 
remarkable, you may say, except that the man in question is blind. Sightless. 
There is no difference in his world between day and night. Black or white. Red 
or blue. Smile or scowl.

S.Y. Leong, 48, is a father of two young adults, who now mentors younger sightless individuals as they grope their way through life with a handicap as big as Mount Everest (if you allow it to be!). Leong himself walks tall. He is a confident, articulate individual who is knowledgeable and aware of the world around him, whether it is on a social or political basis. Unsurprisingly, the plight and welfare of the blind are big issues with him.

When Leong started losing his sight at 29, he was a retrenched office worker doing his best to look after his family. Facing the prospects of a sightless future, he fought his blindness valiantly but after two years and seven operations, the professor who was in charge of his case told him that it was irreversible.

The cause of his blindness was LC disease. The biological damage was the result of vitreous haemorrhaging which in turn caused the capillaries to clot up. Consequently, the retina blurred up. At first, the doctors could not detect the cause of his blindness and so they could not treat him. 

LEONG'S PICTURE: Rain-streaked windscreen of a bus, the driver and a woman 
paying. Leong can be seen on the left

His blindness is total. By 31, when most men are in their prime, Leong lost the 
sight of both his eyes and entered a new and frightening world of complete and 
utter darkness.

"I was angry and frustrated. And I felt totally useless. I remember one occasion 
where I broke a glass in the kitchen. I couldn't move or anything. I had to ask the 
children to go to their rooms and not to come out till their mother got home. I dared not 
take a step because there was broken glass everywhere. Imagine how frustrated I 
felt," recalled Leong with a shudder.

"I was so down that at one stage I thought of jumping off the balcony. That was when 
I still had some sight left. I made my way over to the railing and stood on the ledge and 
looked down. Then I thought, 'yucks!' and gave up on the idea," he said, laughing.

Gradually he came to terms with his condition and used his wits to learn how to be more mobile and independent. He learned new skills to help him earn a living and became a masseuse. He says: "Mobility is very important to a blind person. Once you achieve that mobility, it will inspire such confidence." 

And Leong is the very picture of that confidence. "Unless I need a pair of eyes to do 
something, I will not rely on a sighted person to do it." He is human though and there are 
times when his heart feels heavy. "Every time I wake up, I get a constant reminder: 'You are 
blind.' It wears me down sometimes. So I look for new things to do. I like to get involved in doing 
new things. I can then say to myself, 'I'm doing something that is meaningful'."

It is this desire which has led him to photography. Belinda and Gillian Tan, of 
Picture This & That, have been his clients for years. Gradually the idea for 
this project came up and finally Leong started to agree to experiment shooting 
images with a camera that the girls provided.

"I was a bit shy at first. Imagine a blind fellow taking out his camera and shooting 
pictures. Some people will think that I'm trying to be funny or something," he grins. 
"Whatever the outcome of this project, photography has filled me with a sense of 
usefulness. I've worked on it for nearly a year now. It started out slowly but I've progressed.

"In my mind, being involved, being a part of something was the important bit. Like 
in a race, it was not the winning that mattered, it was having participated and finishing 
the competition."

So how does a blind person work at photography? When does he know when to 
shoot? How does he know whether the composition is right? How is he going to 
judge if the light was enough or not? Well, for starters, he will not be 
shooting the way you or I do.

He uses his other senses acutely: his sense of hearing especially, composing a 
picture in his mind and aims his camera there and clicks away. Most of all he 
uses his intuition and his instincts.

Sure there have been hits and misses and not every shot is perfectly framed, 
but the results will astound you. Some compositions will be like nothing a 
sighted lensman will ever capture because we are too busy interpreting what our 
eyes tells us to see the perfection of the picture.

One of Leong's images captured in a bus is a great example of this. This was 
taken inside a busy bus on a rainy day. Rain is very disorienting for a blind 
person because the sound of rain can mask everyday, familiar sounds which are 
important signals for him to make his way through the day.

It is an amazing picture, almost surreal -- with two mirrors taking prime 
position. There is the rain-streaked glass of the front windscreen of the bus. 
Reflected in the larger, horizontal mirror is Leong himself, a woman passenger, 
outstretched palm with a coin in it and the bus driver. Talk about perfect 
timing. It's brilliant.

"Photographers are inspired to catch images which capture their imagination. One morning, at around 6, I was having one of those heavy, oppressed days. The blind feel like this sometimes. Then I heard a road sweeper and he was whistling. I started wondering what age he was. Forties? That's old and life is passing him by. Is he young? That's even worse. Then I started thinking, 'I'm in my forties, blind, have children and have a job. Life's not so bad what.' He inspired me. I took out my camera and aimed it at the sweeper. Belinda told me I caught him just in time." I can't wait to see the photo she's talking about. 

His efforts were so successful and prolific that there are enough images to stage an 
exhibition of his work. Titled "Insight", it will be on from July 11 till 30 at 
The Photographers' Gallery. It challenges the very idea that not only can photography 
depict what the eye can see but in fact it can also capture what the eye cannot see, that 
which is sensed from within, the intuitive.

If there's one message that Leong can share with the rest of us who are sighted, it's 
that the blind are just as human as everyone else. "We were born human. We just 
happen to be blind. We are not useless, we are just handicapped."

While preparing for the exhibition, Belinda and Gillian taped their 
conversations with Leong. Transcripts from the recordings will show the pithy, 
poetic side of the photographer.

Stupidity is different from ignorance
Some think we're stupid or spastic
Because we can't see.
Just who is the stupid one?

Inconsideration
Flailing my arm for a taxi, I am tired now
Every car sounds like a taxi.
Finally one stops...
Some idiot cuts in on me and gets the taxi.
It's worse when it's raining.

The Daily Grind is Hard
Feeling redundant is common.
Every day I consciously fight this.
I want to do more than just exist
Hope Joy Peace Love
I want to be alive.

The Day that Life Stopped
When I became blind, it seemed like life stopped.
There was DENIAL
Then ANGER
And FRUSTRATION
Now ACCEPTANCE because life began again.

It's true that in Leong's case, life has started again with the realisation that there is 
a future with hope and joy. He finds joy in helping others who are like him. He likes to 
take them under his wing and counsel them to better themselves and push themselves to be 
useful human beings. He confirms that "at first I was angry that I became blind. Now 
I see it as a kind of blessing, because I have learnt so much from it and have been 
blessed by it."

The Right Choices
I choose to believe I'm special Capable of compassion, empathy, understanding.
To cope with his blindness, Leong has even developed a system for reading the world around him.
I was blind but now I see...
Since becoming handicapped
My other senses have sharpened.
By standing still,
I can "read" situations
I can "feel" a person's voice for moods
I can "place" people and objects within a space
I call it SOUND REFLECTION.

When I said: "You sound like a dolphin." He retorted with a chuckle: "I've been 
called many things before, but never a dolphin!"

Leong's sense of perception will put even the sighted ones among us to shame. Share in his inner vision by visiting his exhibition from July 11 to 30 at the Photographers' Gallery in Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur. It is bound to inspire you to see things which you'd never thought of seeing because you have this amazing faculty called sight. 

It will be great if more people could be exposed to this exhibition, which is 
an eye-opener for us sighted folks, for want of a better word. After exhibiting 
at The Photographers' Gallery, it is hoped that sponsors will offer their 
support to take it to more places and people, bringing more light to the cause 
of the visually handicapped.

You can visit its website at www.thephotographersgallery.com.my


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