With Leo, his labrador, fast asleep on the pool deck, Andrew Follows focused his lens on the victorious swimmers parading around in front of him. For some of the athletes, the sight of a guide dog snoozing at poolside was incongruous – as was the realisation they were being snapped by a visually impaired photographer.

“People see me with a dog and they see me with a big camera and they go, ‘Am I seeing this right?!’” says Follows, who has spent the past week shooting at the Commonwealth Games. “The medal winners were all looking down at Leo and he’s asleep; he doesn’t have a care in the world.

“Shooting the Games has been epic, absolutely epic,” he adds. “From the opening ceremony to the end of the swimming finals, I’ve captured some really magic moments.”

• Main portrait of Andrew Follows and Leo by Carly Earl for the Guardian
  

The 56-year-old from Melbourne was born with a form of retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic disorder in which the cells of the retina are unable to sufficiently process light. Blind in one eye, his vision in the other is so poor he cannot rely on it to compose or time his images.

“I’ve had retinitis pigmentosa from birth so I’ve never had good eyesight,” he says. “I’ve got no vision in my left eye and in my right eye I’ve got tunnel vision with about three metres of clear vision – the average person has 70 metres – so it’s pretty crap.

“Over the years I’ve developed techniques [for making photographs] and it works well for the swimming, especially. I’m using my hearing to follow the sound of the water splashing and the crowd.

“You know that the end of the race is coming when the crowd gets louder and louder and louder. I just focus the camera on the end blocks and start pressing that shutter button. I’m not seeing the results until I see them on the computer but I get really excited when I see them.”

Indeed, Follows credits digital photography as being a transformative influence in his life. “I’ve always been involved in photography, even back in the old film days,” he says, “but since I bought my first digital camera in 2006 it’s opened up a whole new world of vision because you take the photos, you put the card into the computer, and all of a sudden you can see a lot clearer the shapes and textures and expressions on people’s faces – everything – so the camera has really become my eyes and allowed me to see what everybody else can see. I deeply love photography. It’s my passion now.”

Follows is one of a growing legion of visually impaired photographers around the world and it is thanks to his friend, the photographer Delly Carr, that he was granted a media pass for the Games.

His guide dog is fairly new to the role of assistant photographer but it’s work to which he’s perfectly suited. Leo even has his own media credentials and the ID number 007.

“I’ve only had him nine months but he’s totally, 100% devoted to me. He utterly adores me and he just goes with the flow. He nailed it around the Games” – even if he did spend half of it sleeping.

• All pictures below by Andrew Follows
  

• Swimmers dive into the pool at the start of a race.

• Bronte Campbell and Cate Campbell after they won gold and silver in the 100m freestyle.

• Sixteen-year-old Ellie Robinson who won gold in the women’s S7 50m butterfly.

• Leo, Andrew Follows’s guide dog, sits poolside.

• Blake Cochrane congratulates compatriot Jess Aungles after going one-two in the 200m individual medley SM8.
  

• A gymnast from New Zealand.

• A gymnast flies through the air during competition.

• Welsh weightlifter Gareth Evans who secured gold in the men’s 69kg category by lifting 299kg.

• Deb Lovely-Acason of Australia in action during the women’s +90kg weightlifting final.