Different ways to show paintings, photos to blind people

Norma Crosby, left, state president for the Texas chapter of the National Federation of the Blind, and Sophie Trist, a New Orleans chapter member, touch a bass relief of a photograph of the Vietnam Tet Offensive, by John Olson, whose company 3DPhotoworks also makes the bass relief, at the American Alliance of Museums Expo in New Orleans, Monday, May 20, 2019. It is one example of how museums are reaching out to make their collections more accessible, said Elizabeth Merritt, vice president for strategic foresight for the group, which represents museums of all sorts, from tiny community history museums to huge zoos. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

As people at the American Alliance of Museums' trade show passed their hands along the raised figures in touchable versions of a Vietnam War photograph, small metal sensors touched off recordings to explain whose picture they were touching and what had happened to him.

At a nearby booth was a flat reproduction of a Van Gogh self-portrait with slightly raised, slicker areas to show both outlines and how brush strokes swept or swirled within those outlines.