Dave Howe: the man, the icon … and the beard

Dave, Sheffield boxer and close friend of Clive’s came to visit last week. It occurred to me that in our enthusiasm to turn one of Clive’s own photos into a tactile image, we never actually spoke to Dave. We chose this image for several reasons. From a printing point of view, it is a simple image, with a clear background and Dave is square on to the camera (perspective is difficult to understand for someone who is blind or partially-sighted) so it suited the process. Clive’s photography is documentary and ethnographic: he enjoys opening a window onto ordinary lives. For him, and his colleagues at Archive Sheffield, “Sheffield is not place, it is people.” Dave Howe is a local boxer who Clive has been working with for some time and, typically for Clive, has become a close friend. So, we chose the image of Dave for Estudios Durero in Spain to turn into one of their Didú tactile images.
 

As the project grows from one image into an exhibition of Clive’s photographs accessible to the visually-impaired as well as the sighted, Dave Howe is turning into the pin-up boy or icon of tactile photography. Is he happy with that? The smile seems to suggest “yes” but perhaps he's grown the beard to avoid him being instantly recognised around Sheffield. It’s wonderful to see Dave next to his almost-life-size tactile image but what are we going to do about the missing beard? I asked Clive’s brother, Paul, whether we should ask Cristina Velasco at Estudios Durero to manufacture a tactile beard to attach with double-sided tape. He replied that he was sure they could find something suitable in Wendy’s fabric box.

Hands in the bag - Part 2

More used to assessing photos with their eyes, how did Clive’s friends get on trying to feel the tactile image unsighted?

Rosy explained: “It was an interesting idea to feel the photo in the bag, and I was quite excited to feel what was in there. When I first put my hand in, it was very confusing. There was so much going on, and I couldn't figure out a starting point as such. When Wendy starting reading the description, it just made it even more complicated. The words were far too descriptive, and it was hard to keep up with what she was saying, in relation to trying to find that part of the image.

Towards the end of the description, Wendy started telling us what was where in the image. For example, ‘in the top left hand corner is Gabrielle's hair.’ The description then continued to guide us round the image, and I feel that that would have been much more beneficial and understandable to have that part of the description first.” Mick agreed, “from my own 'unsighted' perspective I didn't have a clue what it was even with Wendy reading out the description.

Clive’s brother Paul said that he “really wanted to be able to get an impression of the image in my mind through the sense of touch only.” This might be the clue to one of the reasons why they found the process so challenging, as Paul wanted to fix a visual image in his mind, an equivalent of the original photo but, as Euin will explain in a future blog post, this isn’t necessarily how a blind or partially sighted person will interact with the tactile image, proportions and textures being more important.

Seeing the incredible speed at which a blind person reads braille, I guess there’s a lot of learning to be done before one’s fingertips can assimilate such an image with ease.  

Paul continues: “The image itself and the original are great to compare.  The technique fascinating and actually really attractive.  We also tried viewing the image through some of the special glasses Wendy has been given (by the Sheffield Royal Society for the Blind) that give the wearer a feeling for the different types of impairment suffered by blind and partially sighted people. Using the glasses to feel the tactile image was really challenging, as each set of glasses gave a different impression.

From what Clive has explained to us, Wendy and I thought that the blurred pinhole glasses gave us the impression of what Clive was seeing. With a tiny spot of not opaque vision but blurred these glasses allowed the wearer to scan the print at the same time as feeling the image.  It helped tremendously to analyse and feel/see the picture. We are going to try and have lots of different types of glasses available for visitors to Clive’s exhibition to help them gain a sense of what visually impaired people live with.”

Wendy: “Euin (who is partially sighted) has told us that very few blind people are totally blind and that they would use what sight they had to see as well as feel. At the meeting none of us could make much sense of the image even with the description. I thought it would have been more helpful to lead the viewer from say the corner with the hand playing the strings along the diagonal of the neck of the violin and ending at Gabrielle's face.

Markus and Andy explained that the image would never be presented to a blind person in that form but it would have an accompanying booklet with enlargements of key features and Braille markers on the image itself. This makes more sense to me.

It was really useful to see an example of what we are commissioning and the discussion after was, I thought, much more focused because of that. Also we had a box of goggles that had been spray painted in various ways so as to mimic the way that partially sighted people see. Putting them on and 'looking' at the image was more useful that the bag exercise."

A different sort of tactile image

An exhibition needs a space to exhibit and, it seems, we have one. It’s needs a time and that’s looking like a week during August. (Details to follow.) And it needs something to exhibit, which will be photos from the huge and varied archive of Clive’s work. Due to Clive suffering a loss of vision, we were inspired to find a way for him to reconnect with his photography and that way was via feel; the exhibition will follow that theme. The immensely impressive (or should that be impressively immense?) image of Sheffield boxer Dave Howe created for Clive by Estudios Durero in Spain will take centre stage. It was too expensive to commission another twenty such images to make a proper exhibition, so we’ve been looking at alternatives.

Sue King and Michelle Lee, tactile image specialists at the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) have helped us create a tactile image of a photo of a friend of Clive’s playing her violin. The image was chosen because of its simple shapes, such as the body of the violin, the bow at right angles, the four strings and that Gabrielle’s face is square to the camera. 

99% of the work to produce the RNIB tactile image is by their designers choosing what details to keep and what to lose, so as to simplify the image and then pick out which lines to raise. The black lines, printed on special paper, swell up when heated to give a low relief that can be felt.

When you look at the tactile image, and the photo from which it was taken, you can see straight away that it lacks the aesthetical beauty of the Spanish Didú image, which manages to combine the tonal range of a photo with 3D volume. In fact, the RNIB image isn’t pretending to be anything other than a guide for a blind or partially sighted person as to what is in the original image. It’s supplied with a verbal description which could be read to the person or supplied via audio or braille.

At the latest meeting of the exhibition-organising-friends at Clive’s and Wendy’s house last week, Wendy presented each member with a their copy in a bin bag and then sat down to read them the description supplied with the image. In the next blog, we’ll see how they got on and whether this sighted group could make any sense of the tactile image with just their fingers and ears.

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