Client Spotlight – Pete Eckert

 Pete Eckert – Viewing The World Differently

Pete Eckert photo of young ballerina facing audience with hands pressed against each other across chest. The photo background is black and the ballerina is outlined in electric red.

“Pray” photo courtesy of Pete Eckert

“Occasionally people refuse to believe I am blind. I am a visual person. I just can’t see.”

Pete Eckert has always been a visual person and had planned to study architecture at Yale until he was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa. He pursued his MBA instead at the University of Hartford, graduating at the top of his class.  But as he embarked on his career, his journey hit a detour, “People loved me when I had a little bit of vision,” he says. “Then I told them I would eventually go blind.” No job offers came.

Refusing to be bound by assumptions and limitations, Pete turned to his artistic passion which eventually led to his unique photography. As a blind photographer, Pete views the world and his work a bit differently; approaching his photography by looking at the world from the inside with the mission of passing images from the world of the blind to the world of the sighted and hopes that his images will get sighted people thinking about blindness.

Image of young lady modeling Swarovski jewelry

“Mawi” Photo courtesy of Pete Eckert

Pete’s talents have garnered the attention of Swarovski, who flew him to Europe last year to photograph their jewelry in preparation for the LINK Jewelry Summit in Vienna.

And, in September 2013, one of Pete’s photographs was selected for a United Nations Postal Stamp. The stamp was one of six stamps released by the United Nations Postal Administration titled Break Barriers, Open Doors; focusing on the unique talents of artists with disabilities.

Last May, he spoke at the Seoul Digital Forum and continues to be a sought after speaker on the evolution of technology and its impact on those experiencing vision loss and has even had a character based on him in the NBC television series NCIS.

Learn more about Pete’s journey as an individual who has been blind for half of his life and who uses his photos as a means to communicate with the sighted in the September 2014 issue of Comstock’s.

Please also visit Pete’s website at PeteEckert.com.