When vision fades，perception will be reshaped.

Introduction

When vision fades, the body begins to “see” in another way.
Scents, textures, and sounds form a new terrain,
and every sensation becomes a coordinate.

In the upcoming non-visual photography experience,
you will use your senses to take three photographs,
and place them on a sensory coordinate map to observe,
how the body locates, judges, and understands the world without vision.

This is a journey of learning to see through feeling.
Let’s Feeling Feeling ！

List of Materials

• Fresh lemon slices
• coffee powder (in a container)
• white sugar (in a container)
• one small spoon
• one sheet of watercolor paper
• a 30 × 30 cm piece of aluminum foil
• a shooting equipment (camera or mobile phone)

List of Materials © 2025 by Yingshan Yu is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Before any sensory exercise, allow the body to slowly settle down and become a map ready to be explored.

Steps：

Preparation Stage

Step 1: Meditation (1 mins)

Play the guided audio.
Close your eyes and listen, allowing the body to enter a state of sensory readiness.

Step 2: Sensory Warm-up – Blindfolded “Lemon Bomb” (3 mins)

When vision retreats, a playful taste experiment lets your palate reveal whether your senses are ready for the challenge of non-visual photography.

Materials: Fresh lemon slices; Coffee powder White granulated sugar; A small spoon

⚠ Important Notice

If you have allergies to lemon, coffee, or sugar,  you may skip this step and proceed directly to the non-visual photography experience.

Process：

1. Keep your eyes closed until this step is complete.
2. Locate the lemon slice by touch.
3. Distinguish the coffee and sugar by smell, then use the spoon to sprinkle them onto the lemon slice by your feeling.
4. Taste the lemon, let palate tell you whether your senses are ready.（If the flavor feels balanced, your senses are well coordinated.If it tastes too sweet, too sour, or too bitter, your sensory system is not yet prepared.）

Optional Audio Instructions：

A picture of a lemon bomb © 2025 by Yingshan Yu is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Non—Visual Photography Stage

Step 3:The Scented Moon – Non-Visual Photography of Smell (3 mins)

With eyes closed, stamp a small coffee-lemon moon , find its center by smell, and capture your first sensory coordinate.

Materials: concentrated coffee liquid (coffee powder with a small amount of water), lemon slices, watercolor paper
Equipment preparation: familiarize yourself with the physical shutter button on your phone (usually the volume button).

Process:

1. Keep your eyes closed until this step is complete.
2. Dip the lemon into the coffee and blot off the excess.
3. Press or roll the lemon on the paper to create a print—your “scented moon.”
4. Use your sense of smell to locate the strongest scent point, the center of the scented moon.
5. Frame and photograph that area.

Optional Audio Instructions：

an example of the scented moon © 2025 by Yingshan Yu is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Step 4: Foil Mountain – Non-Visual Photography of Touch (3 mins)

Move from the flat moon to a 3D mountain. Let your fingertips read the foil mountain’s ridges, find a tactile coordinate, and capture a non-visual photograph guided by touch.

Materials: one 30 × 30 cm sheet of aluminum foil

Process:

1. Keep your eyes closed until this step is complete.
2. Crumple the foil into a ball, then gently unfold it.
3. Touch and Scan the creases, imagining a mountain range under your hand.
4. Frame the spot with the strongest tactile feeling and photograph that “mountain.”

Optional Audio Instructions：

Illustration Steps of Foil Mountain © 2025 by Yingshan Yu is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Step 5: Inner Symbol—Non-Visual Photography of Bodily Sensation(2 mins)

Bring your attention back to your body and let it become a coordinate point on the map.

Process:

1. Keep your eyes closed until this step is complete.
2. Touch your facial features and choose the part you want to record.
3. Lift your phone and aim roughly toward that feature.
4. Take a closed-eye selfie to capture this inner coordinate.

Optional Audio Instructions：

4 Examples of Non-Visual Self-Portrait © 2025 by Yingshan Yu is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Reflection Stage：

Step 6: Build the Sensory Coordinate Map  (3 mins)

You now have three non- visual images. Place them on one map to form your sensory coordinate system.

Process：

1. Draw a cross-shaped coordinate system:

X-axis: certainty in non-visual photography (blurry to clear)

Y-axis: sensory intensity (weak to strong)

2.Review your three non-visual images.

3.Place each photo on the map according to its sensory experience.

the template of cross-shaped coordinate system © 2025 by Yingshan Yu is licensed under CC BY 4.0

The Example of Sensory Coordinate Map © 2025 by Yingshan Yu is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Step 7: Reflection and Analysis (5 mins)

Process：

1. Look back at three non-visual photos and their positions on the map and answer the following questions:

   (1) Which non-visual photo was the easiest to place on the map? What made it clear for you?

        (2) Which photo was the hardest to position, and what made you hesitate?

   2.Complete the following sentences: In my sensory map, ________ is the scale,________ is the compass,________ is the path.

Conclusion：

Your way of seeing is drawn by all your senses,
and every subtle feeling is a signal that shapes the contours of your world.

Here, scent lifts your moon, touch forms your mountain,
and your bodily sensation become inner symbols that belong only to you,
coordinates of your non-visual world.

This is the essence of Feeling Feeling:
letting sensation set the direction,
letting the body speak before the eyes.

And you are the cartographer of this map,
mapping the traces the world leaves as it passes through you.

Feeling Feeling: Sensory Coordinate Mapping × Non-Visual Photography © 2025 by Yingshan Yu is licensed under CC BY 4.0

(A featured picture © 2025 by Yingshan Yu is licensed under CC BY 4.0)