exhibitions archive: light snares

Light Snares

This work was an exercise that began by accident and furthered my awareness of light. It is amazing how once you can see light how important it becomes in your photography.

Photographer's Statement

Some years ago I discovered sunlight coming through the front room windows. A late afternoon sun dripping particles of glow as it passed through dirt and old uneven surfaces of the glass. The shedding of some of these particles when passing through the glass, gave the light a texture as it entered the room. Once in the room, the way the light skimmed and wrapped objects that lay in its pool gave the light a substance — breath; life. No longer did it just shine on things, it "touched" them giving off those radiant particles in the process.

From this discovery began the inspiration to capture this stuff, this being, to study it further. Could a trap of some sort be fashioned to properly catch this substance? Photographers are familiar with light traps on processing tanks, darkroom doors, ventilators, etc. But for this project a trap like that would never do, for light thusly trapped would not be seen. Something more porous, like the fog, suspended dust, or even the windows themselves... a netting perhaps. Yes, in fact that roll of nylon mesh in the closet might be suitable. Thus began the project of putting out snares for this radiance. The photographs that follow are recordings of what happened at some of these snares.

Environmental Impact Statement (EIS): The light used in this project was sunlight, an all-natural ingredient. Though sometimes harassed into passing through layers of mesh and vinyl modulators, it was in no way harmed and was allowed complete freedom to come and go from the snares.