Many people are under the impression that all persons who are blind live in total darkness.  Blindness encompasses a wide range of vision loss, from the legally blind person with 20/200 acuity or severely restricted fields, to the totally blind, with many varying degrees of blindness in between.  General terms used to describe vision loss are "low vision," "visually impaired," or having a "vision disability."

Depending on the particular eye disease, blindness affects an individual's vision in a variety of ways.  Below is a photo of a rose.  The first frame depicts the view of someone with normal vision, and the rest depict how this same rose would look to someone with a visual impairment.

Normal	Retinitis Pigmentosa
Glaucoma	Cataract
Corneal Pathology	Diabetic Retinopathy
Hemianopia	Macular Degeneration