The Pencil of Nature

„All painting is an accident. But it‘s also not an accident, because one must select what part of the accident one chooses to preserve.“ (Francis Bacon)

To be in a city at night, with all the lights in the darkness, vague noises, much less people walking in the empty streets has something magical. I love to take photos at night. In one of the shootings as I was making long time exposures using a tripod, I have forgotten to fix the tripod. Lapsus. I could see the camera moving slowly down as it was still shooting. The image I had was a recording of the time and movement together, whereas the city lights were drawn on a dark background. The idea to use the camera as a recording device of time, movement, light and colour at the same time was fascinating. On the other hand the movements of the camera could be seen as the mimicry of the accelerating rapidity of life in the city. The idea of making images of perception was a challenge. I began to experiment with the fenomen, thinking that Man Ray most probably had the same type of excitement experimenting on his Rayographs. What I had at the end of the experimental process, beginning with an accident was vibrant light sculptures with an architectural quality.

The second part of the series is photographed in the forest, my second favorite shooting site, in different times of the day and in varying seasons. I wanted to set images of the forest against the images of the city. This time I had abstract vertical lines, in tremendously different colours, reflecting the perception of following the trees towards the sky.

At the end I named the series „The Pencil of Nature“ after Henry Fox Talbots series of photographs from 1840‘s. He had seen a pencil in the ability of the camera to draw, to record the light. And my series of photographs can be seen after 170 years as a contemporary counterpart.