Autism and photography? (skype session 30/09/2019

On Monday September 30^th, I participated at the online session. To start with, I was surprised about the development we went through in one hour. As the discussion was mostly about dancing and the impact of autism on the arts, it was a challenge for me to find a way to imply this issue in my job.

That was the moment I thought: “Are there any professional autistic photographers out there? How do they work and do they use other techniques?” The definition says, that autism is a complex, versatile neurologic development disorder. It refers to conditions, that are characterized by challenges with social skills, the handling of information and perception, verbal and nonverbal communication, speech and behaviour. On the german website autismus.de, they inform that 6 to 7 out of 1000 people have an autistic disorder (whereat I don’t appreciate the word “disorder”).

Most autistic people have intensive, passionate interests as well as pronounced skills. Being occupied with their passion, they show a high focused thinking. As they might have a different point of view, how to handle sensations, I thought it’d be interesting to make a research about the autistic interaction in photography.

The innocent, by Zhang Lijie

To start with, I’d like to present Zhang Lijie, a Chinese photographer based in Beijing. She is no autistic herself, but she launched the project “The Innocent”, where she took pictures of autistic artists with their own artwork projected in the background. Zhang Lijie herself found a fitting and sensitive way to describe autism, their interaction in the arts and their feelings while being creative.

She explains, that the word “autism” is only a word to describe the medical level. In fact, their works are full of energy, originality and pureness. The Chinese photographer compares the art of autistic people with native art (Art Brut). The public gets the opportunity to feel the artists different sensation. At the same time, we get a feeling of shame, because “the mainstream trapped, ignored and misled their talents.”

In conclusion, we can say that even though autistic people might have problems with the exigence of everyday life  they find some kind of orientation in the arts. At the same time, they can follow and express their pure inner nature. We have to admit, that their free spirit is an admirable power, because they can break out of the rigid routine.

Check out "The innocent" at zhanglijie.com.

Confessions from Andy Hutchinson

At PetaPixel, a website for photographers, camera news and reviews, I found an insight into the work of Andy Hutchinson, an autistic photographer from the UK. For him, photography is therapy. He learned to cope with his Asperger Syndrome through the art of taking pictures. After some photography classes, where he also learned how to develop films and producing prints, he started to catch moments on landscape pictures.

Unlike other photographers, that enjoy the social aspect and want thousand of followers on Instagram, Andy enjoys being alone at the locations. The reason is simple: he doesn’t want to talk while being creative and he doesn’t want to photograph the same scene.

Another aspect he mentions is the repetition, routine and obsession. His deepest interest in photography is capturing strong and lightening colours at sunrise or sunset. Andy is obsessed about capturing skies. He even admits that it makes him anxious when the sky is starting to get another colour and he can’t take a picture of it. One thing, that would be very possible to happen is, that he would leave the dinner table, leave the hot food on the plate and rush outside with his camera. The moment he can’t follow this routine, he provokes a physical reaction that might just look weird and immature. In his obsession, he’s always checking the forecast and sunset/sunrise times.

Andy says "I've been taking my photography seriously for about 18 years now and currently have over 160,000 photographs in my Adobe Lightroom catalog."

In my opinion, Andy made a detailed description about the impact of autism on photography. I can imagine, that his behaviour might seem odd to strangers, but he’s only following an inner impulse, that he puts into the colourful photographs. While seeing his pictures, one might say that his themes are not original enough - sunsets/sunrises are too mainstream.

I think that you can feel the depth of colour in his artworks. Just enlarge it over your whole screen and take your time to get overwhelmed by the rich beauty of colour. After his confessions, I must say that I can understand better the disorder itself, how he copes with autism and what benefits he gets while having a camera in his hands. At the same time, I’m admiring Andy’s open nature do describe his feelings while doing his passion.

Check out Andy's portfolio HERE.

Cou can find his blog on PetaPixels HERE.