Thursday 10th March 2011 / Senses

Hearing space

I am working on a photographic project regarding our senses and how individuals connect to their surroundings. I took some shots of Lou a friend who has been blind since birth, the thing about Lou is how finely attuned she is to all the other senses, it isn’t one sense that compensates for her lack of sight, all her senses are heightened.

She hears space, she know’s the scale of the building she stands in or the floor she is walking around, she hears the density of objects. Of course her touch is highly sensitive and she is a trained massage therapist and teaches braille.

But the thing I can’t get my head round is how she senses colour, her clothes are perfectly matched and she doesn’t play it safe. She will touch a garment someone is wearing and name the colour, she will pretty much know the colour of anything she touches, it amazes me.

It made me wonder shouldn’t we all have this sense of awareness? Have our other senses dulled somewhat because we rely so heavily on sight and forget to tune into all that we are?