[accessibleimage] Rosita's aiming to share her world

Thu 19 Jul 2007

http://living.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1125092007
SNAP HAPPY: Rosita McKenzie discovered a hidden talent for taking pictures quite by chance but has since developed a unique style. Picture: CALLUM BENNETTS 

Rosita's aiming to share her world
SANDRA DICK (sdick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
WITH her Nikon D80 digital camera tightly clasped in her hands, Rosita McKenzie carefully lines up her shot, raises the lens to waist height and . . . CLICK.
She doesn't actually have to bother to check the viewfinder, tweak the aperture or sharpen up the focus. And she doesn't really get too concerned if the photograph she produces is a little different to the clean, cropped images we're all used to.
For Rosita is one of the country's only photographic artists who can't actually see the pictures she is taking.
Blind since she was just 11 years old - the victim of a terrible virus which first left her partially sighted then cruelly robbed her of what little vision she had left - Rosita is now carving out a curious artistic career, and one which defies her disability in the most mind-boggling way.
Determined to share the vision of the world around her as she sees it in her own mind's eye, she has just completed her second exhibition of horticultural photographs.
And, in a quirky twist, the collection captures parts of Edinburgh's landmark Botanic Garden that the vast majority of visitors would never normally see. The result is a striking array of images, some - like a moody and atmospheric vision of a long corridor illuminated by a brilliantly lit window - are picture perfect. Others are, understandably, less conventional.
It might sound like a bizarre approach to photography, but Rosita's pictures are being hailed as an unconventional view of the world around us.
Now preparing to embark on a third photographic project - exploring the horticulture of three specialist gardens across Scotland - Rosita admits that she never considered herself a photographer until a chance comment from her husband two years ago revealed her hidden talents.
Fed up always being the one to take the family snaps - and never having a chance to be in them - he suggested she take her turn behind the lens. The results staggered Rosita's family: the pictures taken on a cheap, throwaway camera, were surprisingly well-composed and clear.
"When I was very young I was allowed to take a few photographs," recalls Rosita, 53, who lives in Portobello with her husband Jim, who runs the resource centre at the Central Library. "But, of course, I then lost my sight, and photography wasn't considered to be an activity that I would be able to ever do."
She was living with her family in the bustling, sensory melting pot of south London when she fell victim to a rare virus caught from a neighbour's dog. Similar to toxocariasis, the virus that can be passed on to humans through dog's faeces, it left the otherwise healthy and active little girl desperately ill.
"It was a very rare virus, the doctors couldn't identify it for a good many years and it turned out I was the only child at that time known to have lost the sight in both eyes as a result," remembers Rosita.
"I was just growing up, becoming independent. Then suddenly everything changed, schooling had to be changed, I had to go to boarding school many miles away from my family home, I lost contact with school friends. But that was the system in those days.
"My family were not supported, they were very much left to stumble along with this tragedy that had happened. No-one had the experience of blindness in my family, my neighbours associated it with something that happened to old people. There was nowhere to turn to for support or advice."
Despite her sudden disability, Rosita's family were determined that she should not be totally socially excluded - which is perhaps why she has now become a champion for Scotland's visually impaired and physically less able.
"They gave me an interest in the world around me, they were always describing things to me and, where possible, they helped me to explore them through touch. So in a way, that gave me a keen interest not to just sit back and not take part. I have always wanted to be involved with life, not just sitting on the sidelines."
Her determination that people should not be excluded carved her role as an advisor to many of Scotland's leading museums and galleries.
She provides advice on interpretation, access and participation for visually impaired visitors for the National Trust for Scotland and the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Her work raising the issues affected by disabled students at Queen Margaret University College led to the disability computer suite at the establishment bearing her name.
But it was her husband's determination to be in the family snaps combined with her stumbling over the work of a European-based, visually impaired photographer which inspired her.
Eventually, an invitation from Paul Nesbitt, director of the Royal Botanic Garden's Inverleith House, to compile a collection of views resulted in her first exhibition last year.
Her images are captured with help from an assistant who carefully describes the scene around her.
With the camera's settings turned to "automatic" Rosita then raises the camera to waist height and captures the scene. Yet even though she can't view the pictures she produces, a unique Braille-like adaptation of each image - produced by an English-based specialist - which transforms the flat photograph into a series of raised dots, helps her "see" the finished artwork through touch.
"Rosita has an unusual way of 'looking' at things," says Paul. "If a sighted person was going around taking photographs you'd get staged pictures.
"But that doesn't happen with Rosita, she does a much more honest and real photograph, there aren't so many people in the images.
"She doesn't hold the camera up at her face - there's no point - so the result is she gives a different perspective."
Her latest collection of 12 images, accompanied by 12 "raised" images created specially to help visually impaired people appreciate the image focussed on an area of the garden normally closed to most visitors, the herborium - where 12m specimens of dried plants are stored - and the library.
"Rosita also has amazing powers of awareness, understanding, and intelligence, with the ability to read a situation, something many good artists have," adds Paul.
"We tend to think this imagery and blind people don't go together but Rosita has convinced me that blind people have images inside their head."
• Rosita McKenzie's exhibition, Two Voices; Botany Behind the Scenes, runs at Inverleith House from July 28 to October 14. The event, with explanations of the photographs and images in Braille, forms part of the garden's participation in the Edinburgh Festival. 

Disability - what disability?
THEIR disabilities sound daunting, but physical imparities have not stopped a string of high profile Edinburgh people from incredible achievements.
Hibs star Dean Shiels has continued playing football at a top level, despite having undergone surgery to remove his right eye. The 21-year-old midfielder achieved top flight career despite being blind in his eye following a freak accident at the eight of eight.
Meanwhile, Fraser Bathgate, 43, of Lochend Road, is a diving instructor despite being paralysed for the last 23 years after a fall from a climbing wall. He crashed 25ft on to the concrete floor, permanently damaging his spine.
James Douglas, 74, of Dalrymple Crescent, has been profoundly deaf for the last 15 years, yet has written more than 2000 pieces of classical music.
Edna Blair, of Maidencraig Grove, has had her watercolours exhibited despite being registered blind for the last seven years. In her seventies, she defies her failing eyesight to create landscapes which have already sold to collectors.
Brian Thomson was paralysed from the waist down when a truck he was working on collapsed on top of him six years ago. However he is marking his 40th birthday today (July 18) by 'bumming' his way up North Berwick Law to raise money for another paraplegic Jonny Mitchell who was injured during a match incident.

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