Between The Frames:
Vision Beyond Sight
I didn’t become a visually impaired photographer in a single moment.
There was no before and after—no clean line where one version of me ended and another began. It happened slowly. So slowly that I kept photographing through it.
At first, I didn’t realize anything was wrong. I thought my glasses were overdue for a new prescription. Then came the floaters in my left eye—small black dots drifting endlessly through my vision. Annoying at first. Then impossible to ignore.
I was at a concert the day I understood something wasn’t right. A friend who works in optometry happened to be there too. I told him what I was seeing. He didn’t hesitate. “That’s not normal.”
A month later—December 2023—I finally sat in my optometrist’s chair. To summarize that appointment: it was bad. Very bad. I was diagnosed with bilateral uveitis—severe inflammation in both eyes, affecting my optic nerves. Three days later, during a follow-up, she sent me straight to the ER. The medication wasn’t working, which meant the cause was likely deeper than my eyes.
By then, my vision had deteriorated so much that I used my phone camera—zoomed in—to see my own feet as I walked. I was completely on my own. It was exhausting. Physically. Mentally. Quietly devastating.
The hospital ran test after test. Everything came back normal. No neurological explanation. No clear answers. We were lost.
Then a doctor mentioned a word I’d never heard before: sarcoidosis.
It was the last conversation I had with her before my case was handed over to a uveitis specialist. And it sent me down a familiar path—research. Throughout 2023, I’d been dealing with strange symptoms I hadn’t questioned much at the time, but I had taken photos of them. Just in case. Thank God I did.
Sarcoidosis explained everything.
At my first appointment with the specialist, I told her the whole story and showed her the photos. She agreed to test me, though she warned me it was considered rare. A month later, after a biopsy, the results came back. It was sarcoidosis—primarily in my eyes, but also affecting my skin.
By then, photography was already part of me. It always had been. There was grief, of course. The quiet kind. The kind that surfaces when you scroll through old work and realize you no longer see the way you once did. The kind that asks you to let go of a version of yourself you weren’t finished loving. My mental health took a hit—one I’m still navigating. For a long time, I was convinced I’d have to give up my dream of being a photographer. Eventually, we found a treatment that controlled the inflammation. But it came with its own cost: secondary cataracts.
Still—without the inflammation, even through the blur, I could see enough. With effort. With patience. With determination that never quite learned how to quit. Some days, the world softened at the edges. Other days, it fractured or dimmed. And yet—something sharpened. Not visually, but internally. Timing. Intuition. Presence.
My boyfriend—who came into my life right in the middle of all of this—kept reminding me that my disability didn’t get to decide my dreams. So I listened. I bought my first DSLR with disability leave paycheques and committed fully. I studied endlessly—YouTube tutorials, notes, practice, repetition. I brought my camera on our dates. I let myself learn slowly.
Now, I’m starting the process of enrolling in a photography class, because I refuse to let my disability be the end of my creativity.
Do I work differently than a photographer with 20/20 vision? Absolutely.
Being visually impaired didn’t take photography away from me. It rearranged it.
I don’t photograph despite my visual impairment. I photograph with it.
It lives in the way I slow down. In the way I frame without overthinking. In the way I accept missed shots as part of the story—not proof of failure. Some frames never make it into the camera. Some moments are held only in memory, or sound, or sensation. I’ve learned that those moments still count.
This is how I became a visually impaired photographer: by staying. by adapting quietly. by choosing presence over precision.
Seeing was never just about my eyes. And if following my dreams helps even one person believe they can follow theirs too—then this journey has already been worth it.
