and even reflections off of other objects can be dangerous to your retina...
you could use LEDs instead.... you would need to look at spec sheets and try to find LEDs with very low junction capacitances allowing wide signal bandwidth... for instance a
Vishay through-hole LED has a junction capacitance of 50pf, which has a reactance of over 300 ohms, and so would be ok for a bandwidth of 10Mhz. to improve signal strength, you could probably drive a series string of several LEDs in a group