THE GAZE OF THE BLIND Self-portraits of the blind For 4 years, I returned and stayed in Lisbon to achieve my work "The gaze of the blind". I met some visually handicapped persons (some born- blind people and others who had lost their sight at different ages), and I proposed them and offered them the opportunity to make their own self-portrait. For the first time in their lives, they were asked to become a photographer and a model, subject and object of photography. I wanted to know how a blind man would address the issue of self-portraiture, understand what it meant and implied not to see and give an image of himself. I submitted to them the same instructions: consider this photo session as a moment of complete freedom, take your time and express what you want (choose your body position, your facial expression or feelings that you want to act out). The device was simple. I told them by the sound of my voice the location of my camera (Sinar 4x5), and each of them made a single shot at his own pace. Only the framing and focus were adjusted by me. This act of photography which can be seen as paradoxical in some respects, particularly fascinated me and questioned me not only about the condition of the blind but also about the notion of identity. Or rather about the difficulty to make a definition in the case of the blind photographing himself : Has a blind man a greater freedom in how to pose, to expose himself or to reveal himself than a sighted person? Is he also a prisoner of codes, conventions and social representations? Were the issues of "being nice", "well set" or “forced smiles” have a sense for these blind people? Are there significant differences in the way of representing oneself between blind people and blind people who have once seen? Who ultimately determines the identity, oneself or the other? At the same time and following each self-portrait I asked each blind to describe me as thinly as possible what would be the photographic image they wished to make themselves if they had the use of sight. So, each of them described me what I called their "Image-Desire." Georges Pacheco
