I believe that there is a problem with how central vision loss is typically portrayed in the media.
Medical texts, journals, advertisements and even the websites of eye health organisations, portray central vision loss, and diseases of the macula such as AMD, and Stargardt’s Disease, as a big black spot at the centre of the visual field with perfect eye sight all around. These types of portrayals are meant to show what such diseases look like from the patient’s perspective.
The problem may stem from the fact that most of these descriptions and pictures are made by people who do not have central vision loss – the voice of the patient is generally absent in discourses of eye health.
I have found that these misrepresentations of vision loss are very different from my lived experience and that central vision loss is actually very hard to describe, whether in words or pictures.
This is because the symptoms of central vision loss are dynamic and ever changing, they are always influenced by environmental, physical and emotional states. Such complex symptoms cannot be condensed into a simple catch all ‘black spot’.
© Erica Tandori 2014
Digital work
An image showing a black spot at the centre of the visual field with perfect vision in the periphery. Many medical texts and eye health organisations depict central vision loss as a big black spot at the centre of the visual field.
Digital work
© Erica Tandori 2014
An image of St Kilda Rd, Melbourne, as I see it – there is no central black spot, but rather a hazy absence at the centre of the visual field which softly spreads to a blurry periphery. The colours at the centre of the image appear to be drawn in from the surrounding environment, often a feature of cortical completion or the ‘filling in’ phenomena that often accompanies symptoms of central vision loss.