By touch: an unusual nude from a blind photographer

Only by stretching out his arms, as if connecting himself with the heroes of his pictures, blind photographer Gerardo Nijenda understands how to catch the focus: his fingers often appear in the frame, as if following the direction of a non-existent gaze.

(11 photos in total)

Source: dazeddigital.com

Gerardo was born in Mexico City in 1967, and lost his sight at the age of 25. He became a caretaker at the local library, also responsible for books written in Braille. After some time, Gerardo moved to the city of Oaxaca, where he taught computer science and mathematics at a local center for the Blind.

At the age of 32, he became interested in photography: using the Yashika camera, given to him by the famous photographer Mary Ellen Mark, Gerardo began to create his sensual pictures.

His black-and-white photos, which are overlaid with inscriptions made in Braille, stand out with an exciting vision of female forms. They were carefully included by colleagues on the shop floor in a book called The Blind Photographer.

"In these pictures, taken with touching sensuality, it is as if a refined and aesthetically beautiful mystery is explored, in which the eroticism of touch and proximity, expectation and excitement are mixed," says the preface to the book.