I’m honored to share that I’ve been selected as one of the 2026 Artists-in-Residence for Rocky Mountain National Park. The park’s current list names me in the program as Theodore “Ted” Tahquechi, Photography and 3D Tactile Prints, which feels both exciting and a little surreal in the best possible way. It is a big deal for any photographer to be invited into a program like this, but for me it means something even deeper. This residency is not just about making pictures in a beautiful place. It is about creating work that opens that place up in a different way, through touch, sound, texture, memory, and access.

Rocky Mountain National Park has inspired generations of artists, which is both thrilling and just a tiny bit intimidating. You stand in a landscape like that and realize very quickly that the mountains are not especially concerned with your ego. They have been doing their thing for a very long time. Your job is not to out-dramatic the mountains. Your job is to listen, pay attention, and make something honest.

That is exactly how I want to approach this residency.

Why this matters to me

Photography has always been about more than simply recording what is in front of me. It has been about connection, interpretation, and finding a way to translate experience into something another person can feel. In my case, that has become very literal. The tactile photography work that Carrie and I have developed is built around a simple but powerful question: what if a photograph could be experienced through touch?

That question has changed the direction of my work in a profound way.

On my website, I describe the process this way: we extract the light and texture from an image and turn it into a multilayered tactile print using 3D printing. The goal is not to make a novelty object or some quirky companion piece to a photograph. The goal is to create a meaningful tactile interpretation of the image, something that can communicate shape, depth, flow, structure, and feeling to people who may never engage with that scene visually at all.

That matters in a national park.

These landscapes are often described in overwhelmingly visual terms. People talk about sweeping vistas, dramatic light, endless views, and color that catches fire at sunset. All of that is real, but it is not the whole story. Rocky Mountain National Park is also texture. Wind. Pine bark. Cold stone. Thin air. Water moving over rock. The hush before dawn. The strange acoustics of open space. The rhythm of boots on trail. The smell of dust and sap and weather coming in sideways. I want this residency to live in that fuller experience.

What I’ll be working on in the park

The official residency page notes that each artist participates in a two-week summer residency and presents two public programs as part of the experience. During my August stay, I’ll be creating new photographic work inspired by the park and developing pieces that connect traditional image-making with tactile interpretation. I’ll also be sharing that work publicly through both an interactive experience and a lecture-style presentation in the park.

That combination feels especially meaningful to me.

I do not want this work to stay locked inside a frame, a gallery wall, or a paragraph of artist-speak that sounds like it was written by a committee trapped in a wine cellar. I want people to engage with it. I want them to ask questions. I want them to touch the work, hear the ideas behind it, and think differently about what a photograph can be.

The park setting makes that even more powerful. There is something wonderfully direct about talking about landscape while standing in landscape.

The camera gear I plan to use

For the photography side of the residency, I’ll be relying on the kind of field gear I trust most when I’m working outdoors. I use a Canon 5D Mark IV, a heavy Manfrotto tripod, and a Canon 24-105mm L lens for landscape work, noting that I tend to prefer a heavier tripod because there is always a fair chance I’m going to bump into my own setup and I’d rather the tripod win that argument. That is still very much my kind of logic.

The 24-105mm range is especially useful for the kind of work I expect to do in Rocky Mountain National Park. It gives me enough width for broad landscape compositions, but also enough flexibility to isolate shape, structure, and detail when the bigger scene is too visually chaotic or when a more intimate composition says more. Mountains are majestic, sure, but they are also show-offs. Sometimes the more interesting photograph lives in the smaller patterns, a bend of tree roots, light sliding across stone, the curve of a trail edge, or a tangle of weathered wood that feels like it has been speaking quietly for a hundred years.

The tripod matters for obvious technical reasons, especially in changing mountain light, but it also matters for confidence and consistency. When you are blind or low vision, the physical stability of your setup is not a small thing. A sturdy tripod is not just a tool for sharpness. It is part of the workflow. It lets me work deliberately, check position, make adjustments, and stay connected to the frame in a reliable way.

I’ll also be paying close attention to sound in the park. One of the things I’ve been increasingly interested in is the role of audio in place-based work. A tactile print can communicate form and structure, but sound can help carry atmosphere, scale, and emotion. Water, wind, birds, trail noise, distant movement, the open hush of alpine spaces, these are not background details. They are part of the landscape itself.

How the tactile photography process works

A lot of people hear “tactile photograph” and understandably tilt their head a little. Fair enough. Photography is usually treated as a visual medium, full stop. The tactile process changes that assumption.

The short version is this: I create a photograph, and then the image is translated into a tactile form by extracting meaningful visual information, including light relationships, textures, contours, and layered structure. That information is then used to generate a 3D tactile print. The result is a physical interpretation of the image that can be explored by hand. The process creates a “multilayered tactile print” from the light and texture of the original image.

The important thing is that this is not just embossing random bumps onto a flat picture and hoping for the best. Good tactile work has to make decisions. What matters most in the image? What should rise? What should soften? What needs to be simplified so it reads clearly by touch, and what needs to remain complex so the piece still feels alive? A tactile photograph has to be composed twice, once for the eye and again for the hand.

That second composition is where the real challenge and beauty live.

Some scenes translate into touch better than others. Strong shapes help. Clear transitions help. Layered depth helps. A stand of aspens with distinct trunks may read beautifully. A chaotic mass of foliage may need more interpretation. Rock faces can become wonderfully tactile because they already contain shape, edge, fracture, and rhythm. Water is more difficult, but also more interesting. How do you suggest movement in a still tactile surface? That is the kind of puzzle I love.

And that is one reason this residency matters so much. Rocky Mountain National Park is full of tactile possibility.

Beyond sight, but never beyond photography

I think one of the most exciting parts of this work is that it does not ask photography to stop being photography. It asks photography to grow.

There is sometimes an assumption that accessibility lives downstream from art, as if the art gets made first and then someone eventually remembers to bolt access onto the side like a wobbly cupholder. I reject that completely. Accessibility can be part of the creative act from the beginning. It can shape form, deepen meaning, and create richer experiences for everyone.

That is what I want to explore in the park.

I want to make photographs that stand on their own. I also want to make tactile works that invite a different kind of engagement. I want to think about how a mountain scene becomes legible through touch. I want to think about how sound supports tactile understanding. I want to think about how people move through a landscape, and how the act of experiencing art in a national park can become more inclusive, more physical, and more human.

For me, this is not a side project attached to my photography. This is the work.

Public programs in the park

One of the things I’m most excited about is the chance to share this directly with visitors. The residency includes public programming, and I’ll be leading both an interactive experience and a lecture during my August stay. Artists present a public talk and a family-friendly interactive program as part of the residency.

That means I’ll have the chance not only to show the work, but to talk about the ideas behind it. How do you photograph as a blind photographer? How does a tactile image get made? What changes when art is designed to be touched? What can access add to a creative practice instead of merely accommodating it?

Those are conversations I love having, especially in spaces where people are curious and open.

And let’s be honest, national parks are full of curious people. They are also full of people in hiking sandals making extremely bold decisions, but that is a different blog post.

Looking ahead

I know this residency will challenge me, and that is part of why I am so grateful for it. Rocky Mountain National Park is not a casual backdrop. It is a place with presence. A place with scale. A place that demands attention. I want to meet that challenge with work that is thoughtful, grounded, and genuinely open to discovery.

I’ll be sharing updates as the residency gets closer and throughout my time in the park. That will include behind-the-scenes notes, field experiences, new images, and progress on the tactile pieces that grow out of this work. I’m especially interested to see which scenes insist on becoming tactile, because some photographs arrive like polite guests and some walk in like they own the furniture.

Either way, I’m ready.

I’m honored to be part of this year’s Rocky Mountain National Park Artist-in-Residence program, and I’m deeply thankful for the chance to bring photography, touch, sound, and accessibility into one of the most extraordinary landscapes in the country. This is a big moment for me as a photographer, but more than that, it feels like a meaningful step forward for the kind of work I most want to make.

And now the real fun begins. There are mountains to photograph, textures to translate, and probably at least one tripod leg waiting to ambush me in the field.

I hope you check back often as August gets closer to follow this exciting journey.

Below is an example of my tactile photography work. You can read more about the process, at www.tactilephotos.com