Henry Butler on HBO Blind Photographers Documentary Tonight

Anyone who’s heard New Orleans’ Henry Butler play piano has probably thought to themselves, “How does he do that?” And when finding out that such performances come from a blind man, his abilities become even more impressive. But playing music requires just the fingers and ears, and what’s truly incredible is that Butler is also an accomplished photographer, a talent that most people assume requires, well, eyesight.

A half-hour documentary premiering on the HBO 2 TV channel tonight at 7 p.m. CST challenges that notion. Dark Light: The Art of Blind Photographers profiles Butler, along with two other sight-challenged cameramen, Pete Eckert and Bruce Hall. The film explores all three men’s relationships to the process of capturing a world they can’t see themselves, and to the images they produce. The director, Neil Leifer, has spent his career in photography, and is famous for his iconic photograph of Muhammad Ali standing over the defeated Sonny Liston.