January 26 (Rositsa Ilieva of BTA) - The debut project of the Association of Artists with Disabilities in Bulgaria (AADB), called "Fiesta of Darkness and Light," uses a series of tutorial videos about sensory photography and visual art to encourage visually impaired people to express themselves by visual means. The videos are being posted on the AADB's Youtube channel.

In addition to providing inspiration, the videos are also aimed to demonstrate the potential of persons with disabilities to persons without disabilities who are interested in this art.

Alberto Staykov, the pioneer of sensory photography in Bulgaria, says that this type of photography is practiced by blind people after they receive special training. Blind artists use senses other than vision to direct the lens of their camera and to determine the moment when they need to push the button. To get a sense of the light and their surroundings, they rely on the perception of warmth, noise and even techniques similar to acoustic location: they make a particular sound and determine the positions of objects by the way they hear the sound. Another option is to use the services of an assistant who verbally describes the setting and everything else the artist needs to know to make a photo.

In the tutorial videos, Staykov presents basic rules and tips which not only show that sensory photography is possible but will also be of use to assistants of blind photographers and to beginning photographers with normal vision. The videos explain things like composition, exposure, focus and light - and, yes, the explanations will be helpful even to people who use a smartphone camera.

One will learn from the videos that Staykov was born in Bulgaria and has lived in many countries, including Colombia, the Czech Republic, the United States and Israel. When he returned to Bulgaria in 2007, he realized that there was no information here about sensory photography. He decided to present the art to the local public, and six years later he staged an exhibition titled "Feeling Eyes" at the Sofia Arsenal Museum for Contemporary Art, featuring works by Mexican photographers.

Staykov trained six bright students. One of them liked photographing urban landscapes, and any time he heard voices or the noise of people, he would turn his camera towards them. Another one preferred making portraits and documenting the presence of the people around him. Still another student liked landscapes and went photowalking in the mountains, where he would make a picture whenever he heard a bird sing... That is how the exhibition "The Portrait of Life" was born.

The current project, "Fiesta of Darkness and Light," is the product of Staykov's cooperation with another talented student of his, Nikolai Primov, who is AADB's founding president. After five months of working on the project together with other people, the first few episodes of the "Fiesta" can already be seen.

"Some people may say, what do I care about how you see the world, but others may find it interesting," Primov says. Bright light hinders his vision, and yet he practices both sensory photography and stained-glass art. He is the presenter of the series "The Light of Stained Glass," which is part of the "Fiesta" videos. He would like to urge all blind and half-blind people to draw what they see, or make someone else do it for them, and explain to the world how they see things in darkness.

In one of the most recent videos, Primov demonstrates how he works outdoors. He says that a simple lightbulb is like a bright Christmas tree to him, because, for every image there is, he sees at least five more images that are superimposed on it. He says his choice to practice glass staining is probably due to a subconscious desire for people to be as transparent as glass in their relations.

The project "Fiesta of Darkness and Light" (www.facebook.com/Feeriaotmrakisvetlina) is supported by the National Culture Fund of the Ministry of Culture. RI/VE