ENDURING LIGHT
[This is a tryptic made up of three printed black and white photographs framed size A1]
“Who would believe that so small a space could contain the image of all the universe? O, mighty process! What talent can avail to penetrate a nature such as these? What tongue will it be that can unfold so great a wonder? Verily, none! This is that guides the human discourse to the considering of divine things. Here the figures, here the colours, here all the images of every part of the universe are contracted to a point. O what a point is so marvellous!”
Leonardo Da Vinci
Light is a sensory form that we all rely on: it has an energy whose presence provides us with the sense of sight. The partial obstruction of light casts a silhouette illustrating where light cannot reach, otherwise known as a shadow. Opacity, transparency and translucency are characterised through the cast of a shadow. It has been historically documented that from the initial appreciation of light obstruction, there was a development toward the understanding of optics. This in turn led to the development of light sensitive material, and therefore the photographic camera.
It is only when these behavioural patterns are interrupted, that we question our surroundings. It personally came to me when I discovered the happenstance of a projection that mimicked the result of a camera obscura. While the wind sucked the blind into the window, the light hit a specific angle causing it to bend, with the result that the buildings opposite were delicately illuminated across the wall. The refraction was blurry and moving, but it occurred completely naturally, and completely by accident.
It was with this intimation of changing object into light, to be arrested ephemerally balanced on a surface, that I posed the question – Is the importance of light in photography being forgotten?
“Who would believe that so small a space could contain the image of all the universe? O, mighty process! What talent can avail to penetrate a nature such as these? What tongue will it be that can unfold so great a wonder? Verily, none! This is that guides the human discourse to the considering of divine things. Here the figures, here the colours, here all the images of every part of the universe are contracted to a point. O what a point is so marvellous!”
Leonardo Da Vinci
Light is a sensory form that we all rely on: it has an energy whose presence provides us with the sense of sight. The partial obstruction of light casts a silhouette illustrating where light cannot reach, otherwise known as a shadow. Opacity, transparency and translucency are characterised through the cast of a shadow. It has been historically documented that from the initial appreciation of light obstruction, there was a development toward the understanding of optics. This in turn led to the development of light sensitive material, and therefore the photographic camera.
It is only when these behavioural patterns are interrupted, that we question our surroundings. It personally came to me when I discovered the happenstance of a projection that mimicked the result of a camera obscura. While the wind sucked the blind into the window, the light hit a specific angle causing it to bend, with the result that the buildings opposite were delicately illuminated across the wall. The refraction was blurry and moving, but it occurred completely naturally, and completely by accident.
It was with this intimation of changing object into light, to be arrested ephemerally balanced on a surface, that I posed the question – Is the importance of light in photography being forgotten?
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