Doug Winter is an American semi-sighted lens-based artist and filmmaker whose works are characterized by a preoccupation with light, figurative and nonfigurative forms. His non-representational photographs of conventional objects and human figures in their environments are derived from the human body’s resilience acclimating to physical disability.
Upon earning a degree in photography, Doug began his career in Washington D.C., frequently photographing significant events at the White House. Opportunities to photograph two U.S. presidents, heads of state, diplomats, and celebrities helped Doug see the world as a large family.
In 2012, he lost partial vision in his right eye due to a rare blood disorder. In the years that followed, he adapted to his vision loss and was curious about what other people may be experiencing with their own vision disabilities. His father’s health began to fail a few years later, and his father developed a total loss of vision in both of his eyes. Winter’s impairment, coupled with his father’s, initiated his ongoing project, which explores degrees of impaired vision. It investigates how colors, natural shapes, and forms influence our personal history and how our human system adapts, grieves, and adjusts to significant physical obstacles such as vision loss and visual disabilities.
Winter’s work aims to capture images as a human eye sees, not as a camera’s lens sees. To replicate the partial vision loss experienced by his father, Winter modified a camera lens to distort the shape and color of the objects, removing any reference to a mechanical lens. The distortion pushes formal objects into a spectrum of blurred shapes, merging colors and taps into an emotional well.
Winter gives back to his community by regularly volunteering at Friendship Park, a facility for unsheltered community members. Over the years, he has created hundreds of portraits of the shelter’s guests, which they have used to help gain employment or connect with family.
When he’s not creating photographically, Doug can be found in his home studio forming unique and one-of-a-kind ceramic objects.
