INFRARED SPACETIME PAINTINGS
Some of my earliest memories are from staring out the side window of car as a child, on my way to Grandma’s house early in the morning before my Mother went to work. I used to squint real hard at oncoming headlights to make them into starbursts, or stare deep into the forested countryside hoping to see some wildlife while the foreground shrubs streaked by in dim twilight. It wasn’t until 15 years later I revisited those fond memories with a practical exercise in mind.
A lot of time had passed since I was 5 and I had learned a ton about photography, art history, light and physics- I wanted to use my knowledge to document the phenomenon I remembered, to record what happens when you are speeding past a landscape and something catches your gaze for a split second then it’s gone.
- spacetime painting no 002 – Feathered Birch
- spacetime painting no 003 – Old Oak spin
- spacetime painting no 005 – Crop Circles
- spacetime painting no 006 – Orchard Oblivion
- spacetime painting no 007 – Birch Stand
- spacetime painting no 008 – Old Oak near Townline Road
- spacetime painting no 011 – Lone Crabapple
- spacetime painting no 012 – Hayfield and Hedgerow
I applied everything I knew in order to capture what I had remembered from so long ago. Through some experimentation, I found a special relationship between focal length, shutter speed, aperture, relative velocity, and panning motion to create these 4 dimensional compositions. I call them Spacetime Paintings.
Spacetime Painting is a poetic term to describe a way of composing images whereby a ‘subject’ moving through the element of ‘space’ intersects through the element of ‘time’ so that the relationship between ‘space’ and ‘time’ becomes a dynamic and changeable compositional tool.I have developed a way of creating a 3d model of space in my head that replicates any given space I happen to be in. I can then imagine within that 3d model, how any given camera lens placed in the ‘space’ will see ‘objects’ or duly ‘subjects’ line up relative one another. Using this ability in the real world I can anticipate an upcoming alignment of ‘objects’, and further to how that relationship will change over the course of ‘time’, while moving through ‘space’. So when I push the shutter button and move the camera, while driving a car, I can still get predictable results.
The slow shutter exaggerates my speed of travel so that the camera “paints” the scene, almost as though you were traveling at near light speed. The panning motion of the camera approximates the effect of your eyes locking onto a fixed point. I pan along a desired plane of focus, keeping one point or and entire surface from the real world in the same place on the film plane by moving the camera in a smooth and constructive fashion, relative to the desired composition and the duration of the long exposure.
I shot these Infrared Spacetime Paintings while driving around the countryside I grew up in. I have to control the car (usually) so I need to use my imagination, and my right hand to see what my lens is seeing, without looking through it. It wouldn’t really matter if I could anyway, shooting infrared requires the use of a deep red filter over the lens that’s so dark, you could practically weld with it.
The resulting photograph reveals things you can’t see in the moment, when your eyes darted to see that fixed point. You get to see how fluid the world actually is, how smoky and transparent solid things really are. Your world, like these pictures, is made up of what, where and how you focus your intentions.
I’m finishing them in two very limited editions of only 10. Sometime soon I’ll be putting a Limited Edition book together, stay tuned for that.
POLLOCK EDITION
A giclee canvas 28×40″ Hand Sprayed Iridescent Finish by the artist.
Signed and Authenticated with a hand print Au verso.
EDITION OF 10
ANSEL EDITION
An ENDURA Metallic Archival Print on aluminum 14×20″
Signed and Authenticated with a hand print Au verso.
EDITION OF 10
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