George A. Covington: A Short Biography Born legally blind, with less than ten percent of normal vision, George A. Covington first achieved national media attention for his work in using photography as a seeing tool. "Most people see to photograph, I photograph to see, " he says. "A photograph reduces the confusing world of reality to an abstraction I can understand," he explains. He is the former Special Assistant for Disability Policy to the Vice President of the United States during the Bush-Quayle administration. He was the first person to serve fulltime as a White House aide on disability issues. Prior to joining Vice President Quayle's staff, he worked on disability projects on the staff of Representative Jim Wright, former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Vice President Dan Quayle and George Covington aboard Air Force Two. Working with the office of Representative Charles Wilson, he designed and implemented the first fully accessible mapping of Capitol Hill and the monuments. This project, the Tactile Capitol, provided vistors with visual impairment or other disabilities with hand-held Braille and table-top scale maps of Washington, DC. He is an attorney and former journalism professor whose career has spanned the fields of law, journalism, education, government, and disability civil rights. Before his work with the Federal Government, he was a media and communications consultant to non-profit organizations. He is the former Co-Chair of the Universal Design Task Force of the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities. For the past fifteen years, Mr. Covington has worked to change the mass media's portrayal of disabled people. He feels the media reflects and reinforces the negative images and stereotypes held by society about people with disabilities. Bruce Hannah and George Covington, authors of Access by Design Mr. Covington is co-author of Access By Design, which was published in October of 1996 by Van Nostrand Reinhold. The book is a survey of consumer products that approach the goal of universal design. These products, including the KODAK ImageSource 70 Copier-Printer and the KODAK FUNSAVER Pocket Camera, are designed in such a way, that they reach a broader spectrum of potential users than similar products in the same field. He has taught numerous photography workshops for people with disabilities. Most recently he taught "Photography: A Tool For Access" for consumers of the Harlem Independent Living Center. Working with Jim Belfon, Executive Director of the Photographic Center of Harlem (PCH), the two taught a workshop on photography for local residents with disabilities. PCH is a not-for-profit, membership, full service hands-on photographic learning environment within the Central Harlem Community. To Photograph Is To See Menu | Introduction | Biography | Paper | Photographs |