Short Sight – What The World Looks Like Without Glasses

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to wear glasses? What the world looks like when you take them off?

I have terrible eyesight, and people who don’t wear glasses always ask to try mine on. I realised quite early on that what they see through my glasses with perfect sight, bears no resemblance at all to what I see when I don’t have my glasses on.

Over the years I have had fights with everyone from parents of friends at childhood sleepovers to well-meaning lovers who move my glasses from the bedside table “to keep them safe”, not realising they are condemning me to a period of panic when I wake up and they aren’t where I left them, and I can’t see well enough to find them without help.

Explaining often makes me sound overly dramatic – after all, I’m not blind, right?

And so Short Sight was born.

I’m a branding photographer for small businesses, and my camera is usually with me, so photography seemed the most natural way to illustrate Short Sight.

As I often have downtime between shoots, and live near the coast, I spend a lot of my free time on the beach and by the sea, which you’ll see from the shots.

I’m shooting this series mostly with a 35mm lens to mimic our own field of view as closely as I can, and after shooting the in-focus shot, I manually adjust the focus ring so it is as close as possible to what I see without my glasses on.

The series is always growing, and so far I’ve included images from everyday life – from a view of the beach to my bookshelf & cats.

More info: Instagram