Jumping On The Learning Curve

It’s been a while since I gave my TED talk about my work as a visually impaired filmmaker and still occasional photographer. and like most people who spend even a little time in front of the lens, I like to go back and review my performances. Call it ego. It’s OK. I do.

This time, though, I was reviewing my TED Talk because I needed to give myself a good kick in the pants. I’ve been working on The Palette Project for quite some time now, and I’ve seen it through its many evolutions. It’s certainly fulfilled every Continue reading “Jumping On The Learning Curve”

Blindness 101: Essential Reading

I have to admit I’ve never felt much buy-in when it comes to the idea of inspiration, or at least the inspiration business. What was the phrase Eisenhower coined? The military-industrial complex? Call this the inspiration-motivational complex. There is, really, a large industry built upon motivating one group of people to be inspired by another. This has real and often unfortunate consequences and one of them is an unintended victimization. This TED talk illustrates exactly what I’m talking about.

That video was one of the reasons why, when I was invited to deliver a TED talk of my own, I went to great lengths to make sure that it was not an “inspirational” speech. I invite you to Continue reading “Blindness 101: Essential Reading”

Guide Dog in Training
Guide Dog

Si Se Puede, Part II

The life of a visual storyteller is based on one hard and fast rule: you write to the video you have, not the video you wish you had. Our unscheduled shoot at Guide Dogs of South Australia and the Northern Territories was a reminder that whether you’re the last reporter on the scene and the police are rolling up the crime scene tape or filming an around-the-world documentary about what it’s like to explore the world in the midst of losing your eyesight, the rule is the same.

Guide Dog

For this, I couldn’t be happier.

The challenges facing my shooting partner and I could hardly have been more daunting. We had been on the ground in Continue reading “Si Se Puede, Part II”