Sony Europe has unveiled the second Through Their Lens collection, a ten-image series shot by British Paralympic athlete, photographer and videographer Zak Skinner. The project, which celebrates the work of blind and partially sighted photographers, follows last year’s collection with Gary Williamson.

Zak has ocular albinism, which affects his visual acuity and causes nystagmus, involuntary eye movements, as well as sensitivity to light. He represented Great Britain at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics and is a double European Para gold medallist in the 100m and long jump. Away from the track, he runs the sports photography and video business Blind Man Visuals.

The collection moves from athletics images into studio portraits of fellow British athletes. One of the most striking techniques is in the track pictures: to interpret the disorientation he experiences when his nystagmus intensifies during exertion, Zak positioned himself behind an athlete, used a slow shutter speed to introduce motion blur, and then rotated the frame so the track lines run at an angle.

How Zak sets up his cameras

What makes this more than a gallery is the detail Zak has shared about how he configures his kit. He shot the series on his own Sony Alpha 7 V and an Alpha 7R V, and his most-used accessibility feature is Enlarge Screen, which he assigns to a custom button so that a single press makes settings large enough to read and adjust while shooting.

Outdoors, where background noise makes spoken information hard to hear, Enlarge Screen is his main tool. In quieter studio settings he also uses Screen Reader. Mapped buttons and dials, together with the tactile feel of the camera body, let him change settings by touch.

“Having a camera that I can set up around the way I work means I can spend more time thinking about the image I want to make,” said Zak Skinner. “I hope people look at the collection and see the ideas and the work that have gone into it and perhaps feel encouraged to pick up a camera themselves.”

Robin Spinks, Head of Inclusive Design at the RNIB, added: “Features such as screen readers and enlarged menus can make a practical difference to how people with sight loss use a camera.”

It’s a useful reminder that the accessibility options buried in camera menus are worth exploring, and that customisation is just as valuable for photographers with access needs as it is for anyone else trying to work faster.

Key details

Where to see it

Zak Skinner’s Through Their Lens collection can be viewed on the Sony UK website.