Lost my Sight but not my Vision

Recently I had to have emergency eye surgery due to having a detached retina. I am so thankful that I live in an age where I can have my sight restored. The procedure involved having a gas bubble injected into my eye as well as having a buckle permanently sewn around my eye. If reading that makes you feel squeamish, believe me, I was not a fan of having this done to myself. I have a huge phobia involving any touching around the eyes and was in complete shock when I found out that I needed immediate surgery. Thankfully they were able to knock me out during the procedure, so I just went into the O.R. then woke up in recovery.

And this has been the real tricky part, the recovery.

Currently, I am blind in my left eye and being a photographer this really fucking sucks. And to just make matters worse, it will take up to 8 weeks to fully heal. I am doing my best not to let this bring me down. I have a lot of help and support from my family and friends, and my wife has been truly amazing taking care of me, our two girls and still being able to work. I can push through the physical pain and the annoyance of it all, but the biggest hurdle for me is just not being able to work on my photography.

But I refuse to let this stop me, I refuse to let this get in the way of my dreams, and I refuse to let this slow down my momentum, so I decided to challenge myself and take a self-portrait.

I needed to take this photo of myself, for myself, just to see that even with all the odds stacked against me, I can still do this. I can still take great photos. I can still take that image inside my head and bring it into the world for everyone to see.

I may have temporally lost my sight, but my vision never has, and never will fade away.

The other thing that I realized after taking this photo is that I'm so good I can do all of this with one eye closed.