Voodoo Shaman The New York Times Lens Blog...

Voodoo Shaman

The New York Times Lens Blog profiles photographer Sonia Soberats:

Her subjects are often friends or family, and she frequently captures or recreates life-altering events: pregnancies, marriages, death. Her work is often joyous, but it can be haunting, even schizophrenic. She plays with light and texture and draws on her Latin roots, taking the viewer on a journey to places as magical as the the fictional town of Macondo or as surreal as a Salvador Dalí painting…

…Ms. Soberats does not rely on capturing a decisive moment. Instead, her technique, called light painting, involves careful planning and imagination…

…Using various light sources, including flashlights and Christmas lights, she darts about the frame like Tinkerbell, illuminating details within the image. The shutter remains open anywhere from two minutes to an hour.

Oh, important note: Sonia Soberats is blind.

She’s a member of the Seeing With Photography Collective, a New York-based group that creates collaborations between the visually impaired and sighted photographers. Her first solo show was last February in Venezuela.

New York Times, Visions of a Blind Photographer.

Image: Voodoo Shaman by Sonia Soberats. Via Flickr.