[Art_beyond_sight_learning_tools] To Photograph is to See: A Portrait of George Covington

[Lisa Yayla]

http://www.kodak.com/takePictures/covington/introduction.shtml

To Photograph is to See:  A Portrait of George Covington
                                                                    
George Covington is a photographer. His photographs have been displayed from Harlem 
Hospital to the Smithsonian Institute. He has also spent the better part of 20 years 
advocating the rights of millions of Americans with disabilities. His passion for 
photography and his many accomplishments are so unique, we felt we just had to share 
them with the world. Please read on or listen in as Kodak proudly presents the World Wide 
Web premiere of "To Photograph Is To See," by George Covington. Some folks might 
even be more impressed once they learn that George has been legally blind since birth.

Mr. Covington's passion for photography was featured in an award-winning series called  
PEOPLE IN MOTION, which premiered on PBS in April of 1996.

Arnold Newman had the following to say about George Covington: "Why is it George's 
work has so much unity in it?  This cannot be an accident.  I'm not saying he's the greatest 
photographer around.  It's his ideas about photography and his dedication to his ideas that 
count.  His intelligence and understanding of what he can do with photography  -- they're 
just incredible.  I've done this for 40 years, and he's given me ideas I've never thought 
of."

These comments were attributed to Mr. Neuman in an interview in The Washington Star, 
Saturday, December second, 1978

The following is a short biography of Mr. Covington.

Born legally blind, with less than ten percent of normal vision, George Covington first 
achieved national media attention for his work in using photography as a seeing tool.  
"Most people see to photograph, I photograph to see" he says.  "A photograph reduces the 
confusing world of reality to an abstraction I can understand." he explains.

He is the former Special Assistant for Disability Policy to the Vice President of the United 
States during the Bush-Quayle administration. He was the first person to serve fulltime as a 
White House aide on disability issues.  Prior to joining Vice President Quayle's staff, he 
worked on disability projects on the staff of the Speaker of the United States House of 
Representatives.

Working with the office of Representative Charles Wilson, he designed and implemented 
the first fully accessible mapping of Capitol Hill and the monuments. This project, the 
Tactile Capitol, provided vistors with visual impairment or other disabilities with hand-held 
Braille and table-top scale maps of Washington, DC.

He is an attorney and former journalism professor, whose career has spanned the fields of 
law, journalism, education, government, and disability civil rights.  Before the Federal 
Government, he was a media and communications consultant to non-profit organizations.  
He is Co-Chair of the Universal Design Task Force of the President's Committee on 
Employment of People with Disabilities.

For the past fifteen years, Mr. Covington has worked to change the mass medias portrayal 
of disabled people.  He feels the media reflects and reinforces the negative images and 
stereo-types held by society about people with disabilities.

Mr. Covington is co-author of Access By Design, to be published later this year by Van 
Nostrand Reinhold.  The book is a survey of consumer products that approach the goal of 
universal design.  These products, including the Kodak ImageSource 70 Copier, are 
designed in such a way, that they reach a broader spectrum of potential useres than similar 
products in the same field.

He has taught numerous photography workshops for people with disabilities.  Most 
recently he taught Photography: A tool for access for consumers of the Harlem Independent 
Living Center.
 
The following is a narration of a paper written by George Covington, titled,  Photography: 
Access to Sight

Most people see to photograph, I photograph to see.

I was born legally blind with 20 400 vision in both eyes.  Because of a combination of 
astigmatism, nastagmus, eccentric fixation and my-opia, all acute, my eyesight was not 
optically correctable.  Over the past twenty years, I have lost most of this vision due to a 
retina degeneration problem. Presently, I function with less than five percent of normal 
vision on the periphery of my right eye.

Shortly after my present vision loss began, I discovered that photography allowed me to 
keep open this priceless channel of perceptive communication.  It was startling to look at a 
self-portrait and realize I had stopped seeing myself in a mirror.  It was equally startling to 
realize I had stopped seeing the faces of my friends and relatives.  If I had not become 
seriously interested in photography at that point in my life, I would today consider myself 
blind; as long as I can photograph I will never be blind.

Photography allows me to see what I otherwise could not see.  Visually impaired people 
around the globe can use photography to better see their world.

The reason a photograph is easier to see than the scene it represents is simple to 
understand.  A photograph is not reality, but an abstraction of reality.  Even the most 
correctly developed photograph is a high contrast abstraction of the object it represents.  
Thousands of colors, shades, hues and textures are reduced to a few shades of gray 
between black and white.  Confusing shapes and distances are reduced to a two-
dimensional representation.

Although eyesight is measured in numbers such as 20 20, 20 100 and 20 200, these 
measurements are not exact.  Much as no two individuals with "normal vision" will see the 
same, so is it true of the visually impaired.  A black-and-white photograph helps reduce the 
differences in degree of vision by allowing the individual to view a person, place or object 
in the situation best suited to the individual's particular vision problem.  While everyone 
loves the beauty of a color photograph, color can often add back some of the confusion by 
reducing the detail and resolution that carries vital information.

The most important aspect of reducing a scene or object to a photograph is that it allows the 
visually impaired person to have total control of both detail and perspective.  There are two 
aspects of the control of both detail and overall perspective.

First, a photograph allows individuals with diminished vision to view the scene or object 
represented by the photograph in the best light and at a distance from their eyes that best 
compensates for their particular problem.  While many require a great deal of light for best 
results, other might have a vision problem that requires them to see the light coming from 
the back of the print.  A photograph allows a person with diminished vision to get close 
enough to breathe on the object and in some cases use a magnifying device.

Secondly, the photograph allows the visually impaired individual to see both detail and 
perspective at the same time.  If a person were to try to move close enough to view each 
element within a scene, they could not see the other objects in the scene.  Thus, they would 
lose over-all perspective.  If they backed away far enough to have an over-all perspective, 
they would lose detail without gaining perspective.

Photography literally allows you to make the large small enough to see and the small large 
enough to see.  Many of us see the world as though it were painted by Moneigh.  A 
photograph crystallizes time and space and give our world definition.  I love Monet's 
work, but I prefer my world in focus.

My latest interest is digital photography and the desktop darkroom. Digital images give me 
the control I need to see my world better. Here is a shot of some friends I recently took 
with a KODAK DIGITAL SCIENCE DC40 camera.

Some of Mr. Covington's photographs are entitled:
      Maine Foggy Rural Road 
      Maine Rocky Coast 
      Morgan Town, West Virginia 
      Bridge Over Cotton Club 
      Rock Formation, LBJ State Park 
      Log Fence, Central Texas 
      Abandoned Building, Central Texas 
      Windmill, Central Texas 
      Augusta and Arnold Newman 
      Reid Callanan 
      Stacey In Air 
      Quayle and Fireman 
      Ann Doyle 
      D. C. Rally 
      Dianne Craig 

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