In a world that often feels overwhelming and difficult to decode, I’ve found a lens to be more than just a tool. It’s become my interpreter, helping me understand and connect with a reality that sometimes seems to speak a different language than I do.
Living on the autism spectrum means I experience the world differently than most. While I maintain a successful career and some meaningful relationships, the daily task of navigating social interactions and processing the constant stream of unspoken signals can be exhausting. Social cues, despite my best efforts to recognize them, sometimes slip past my understanding like shadows at dusk. It makes me appear naive sometimes. Meeting new people feels like stepping into uncharted territory without a map. And each social interaction draws from a limited well of emotional energy that needs careful rationing.
My autistic mind has always been drawn to intense focus and complete immersion in specific interests. From an early age, I would dive deep into subjects, needing to understand every intricate detail, every connection, every possibility. I still do (I call those things my “hobbies”). This trait, while sometimes challenging in social situations, has become one of my greatest strengths educationally (I did a bachelors degree, a master of science, and a PhD) and professionally (I’m a VP Engineering but a developer at heart). But it also created a paradox: how does someone who needs to understand everything cope with the inherent ambiguity of human interaction?
Photography emerged as a bridge to understand others’ perspectives. Through viewfinders, theirs and mine, I discovered a way to observe and connect with their world while maintaining the comfortable distance I need. Each photograph I encounter is a window into someone else’s obsessions, their way of seeing, their particular slice of reality. It’s like reading a diary written in light and shadow, telling stories without the need for direct conversation.
What makes photography particularly suited to my way of processing the world is its nature as an “take and go” art form. I can capture moments, process them in solitude, and then share them with the world on my own terms. If I want to. And I don’t necessarily need to explain it to anyone.
I sometimes go back to old photos and rediscover how I saw a place or what I felt at the time.
But it’s especially important for others’ photos. Their photographs are a view into their world. Once released, their visual stories take on lives of their own, creating connections and sparking understanding in ways that don’t require the immediate back-and-forth of conventional social interaction.
Through other photographers’ works, I witness the world as they see it: their joys, their concerns, their fascinations. Each image is a silent conversation, a way to understand human experience without the overwhelming complexity of real-time social interaction. A street photographer’s candid shot reveals the subtle dance of human relationships; a landscape photographer’s dawn image shares their sense of peace and wonder; a documentary photographer’s work opens windows into lives and experiences far removed from my own.
In this way, photography has become a translator, converting the sometimes overwhelming complexity of human experience into a language I can process at my own pace. It allows me to participate in the grand conversation of human experience while honoring my need for space and time to process. Through the lens (mine and others’), I’ve found a way to both observe and contribute to the world’s ongoing dialogue, bridging the gap between my internal landscape and the vast, varied terrain of human experience.
Of course I’m not saying that photography is the solution to autism. It would be silly and nonsensical. It’s just an aid, something that can give clues and teach about the reality of the world to someone who struggles with live interactions. The beauty of the medium lies not just in its ability to capture reality, but in its power to create understanding across different ways of experiencing the world. For someone who sometimes struggles to read daily social interactions, photography can become an alternative alphabet, helping us spell out our own story while learning to read others’.
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