Meeting a 'Canadian Original' - blind photographer Tara Miller

Note from editor: Jill Macyshon's story about legally-blind photographer Tara Becker Miller, whose story inspired many after she won a national competition, is the subject of a new CTV National News segment called Canadian Originals -- premiering on tonight's 11pm newscast.

Do you know a 'Canadian Original' we should be featuring? Please email us your ideas at originals@bellmedia.ca. 

Here's Jill's blog:

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Hi everyone,

The day I met Tara Miller, I think I was expecting a stereotype.

Dark glasses, maybe a cane. Tara had neither. When I saw her she had a smile on her face and camera slung around her neck, and beside her, her partner, her husband and sometimes her eyes, her husband Jeff.

When you look in Tara's eyes you can see her pupil is off centre.

The black of her left eye isn't a circle; it's shaped like a tear drop. That's her good eye, the one with six per cent vision. In her right eye, the one that looks like yours or mine, she's totally blind.

Tara's eyesight has been poor since birth. She contracted congenital rubella syndrome in utero.

When she was a toddler, Tara parent's, on the advice of doctors, agreed to an operation to help her see again. The procedure was a success. She was able to go to school, she had poor vision, but Tara could see. In her teenage years her eyes started deteriorating again; Glaucoma was now robbing her of sight. In her early thirties Tara Miller was declared legally blind.

Tara told me she always loved art and beauty. She loved drawing and painting. When she lost most of her eyesight she also lost her willingness to create.

She said people encouraged her to participate in other hobbies like Tai Chi, but when her husband started taking photography lessons and brought Tara on shoots for school assignments, suddenly she wanted to do more. She wanted to take pictures herself.

Jeff showed her that when the pictures came home she could enlarge them on her computer screen up to 500X. Tara was suddenly able to see again. She could see the grooves on a raspberry. She could see the petals on a flower. She could see the fur on a rabbit.

Tara and Jeff are parents. Through photography, Tara has also been able to see her son grow up. She told me she often brings her camera with her, if her son says, "Hey mom look at that!" -- she snaps a picture. When she gets home, she enlarges the photo on her computer and she's able to see what all the excitement was about.

Today, Tara Miller is an award-winning photographer.

More than that, she is an inspiration.

A woman whose personality is as beautiful as her pictures.

I'm very lucky to have met her.

Jill (@jillmacyshonctv)