SHOT IN THE DARK is a portrait of three photographers who have one thing in common besides their unusual work: they are blind. Before we see their photographs and slowly find out about their stories, we watch them at work. Pete Eckert meticulously measures the spaces which he will photograph later on; whether it is a street, a church, a kitchen, or a clearing. He uses his cane, his body, echoes, and light exposure and visits places again and again until he has made enough physical contact to be able to photograph them. Thanks to precisely applied double exposure his images seem like visions of places frequented by ghosts. Sonia Soberats photographs seem to manifest themselves into supernatural halos. She works a lot of with people and arranges scenes that mirror inner states: a woman fighting with a sword against a wall of fire, a subject sitting in front of an ocean backdrop with flashes of lighting, or portraits that are also expressions of an aura. She says she can sense whether someone is happy or sad. Unlike Pete and Sonia, who gradually lost their sight over the years, Bruce Hell was born with a serious sight defect. He can only see things that are very close to him and photography was a way for him to open up to his surroundings as he took photos and saw them enlarged later on. That’s only one of the things you learn while watching this careful, highly interesting artist portrait: blindness is a different experience for each individual.

Hendrike Bake (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy