[accessibleimage] Re: photography and the blind

Hi Barry,
Your ideas are really interesting. I while ago an artist asked me about
the possibility of using swell paper for art. I was well sort of hesitant
about it. Good to stand corrected and a good reminder to me not to limit
how mediums can be used.  Will pass your information along and good to
learn about another use for swell paper.
Thanks,
Lisa


accessibleimage@xxxxxxxxxxxxx skriver:
>Hi. listers!
>
>As you know, I've been doing photography with blind and low-vision 
>students for the past two years.
>
>To date, all of my experiments with tactile graphics have been done with 
>solarplate - wonderful stuff (relatively easy to use, non-toxic and 
>accessible to some l-v students who can use computers to make their 
>negatives. It also gives them some sense of the working process of a 
>regular black & white photo lab.
>
>Recently, I started putting photographic images onto Swell Touch paper 
>(vendor: American Thermoform.)
>
>It's much cheaper ($1 compared to $5-6 for solarplate) and faster. Less 
>monkeying around trying to get good exposures. One downside is the need 
>for a fuser.
>
>For those unfamiliar with swell paper, you can feed this through a 
>regular photocopier or laser printer to lay down the image. The paper is 
>them fed into a fuser which bubbles up the plastic coating. I'm not an 
>expert at tactile graphics and others might correct me, I've mostly seen 
>this paper used to make maps and graphs.
>
>My process:
>Much of my own photography is done on film. I scan my negatives and work 
>with them in PhotoShop. Finished images can be printed out on a laser 
>printer on this swell paper. I sometimes use a digital camera to 
>eliminate the processing steps, but the image is still brought into 
>PhotoShop for adjustment. (When I'm creating images for blind and L-V 
>viewers, I convert to black & white and get rid of much of the detail 
>leaving only highlights.) You can also decide which areas are done in 
>relief and which are flat by shifting between printing the positive 
>image and printing the negative onto the swell paper.
>
>I call my images "faux-toe-graphs"
>
>I am interested to have others use this process and give me feedback. I 
>envision it as a useful tool in teaching concepts of visual art such as 
>texture, balance, composition, etc. It might be just plain fun for a 
>blind kid to have a faux-toe-graph of his dog. (By the way, these are 
>also accessible to visually-abled viewers.)
>
>In case you're wondering, I have not recently bought stock in American 
>Thermoform, not am I part of their sales team. Though, hmmm... I might 
>have a couple of calls to make on Monday.... (just kidding!)
>
>Cheers,
>Barry


Lisa Yayla
Huseby Kompetansesenter 
Oslo Norway
lisa.yayla@xxxxxxxxxx

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