Ideas
After discovering and uncovering light, I am now on the journey of recovering. I want to see how I can capture light, something that is so essential to life, and help make people notice the beauty in its constant evolution around us, or to perceive it in new ways. I have come to be much more observant of the changes in light around me, and I want to find a way to take photographs which observe this too.
Does light define space, or does space define light? How does light impact our experience of a place or what we see? I will continue to explore light in the city through my recovery process, as I think there is such an interesting relationship between the city environment and the natural light, causing reflections and shadows etc. I’m particularly keen to capture sunlight in the city, rather than street or buildings lights. It creates contrast between fleeting and permanent/still, as well as between natural and man-made. I want to work around the idea of how light shapes what we see, and how light interacts with space through time.
City Time Lapse
I chose to create time lapse videos rather than printed sequences as I didn’t want to make the images static or permanently visible, and I think it really shows the idea that light is always changing. I am thinking of presenting this through a projector, which would work well with the idea of light.
I decided to go back to a couple places I had discovered in the city to take time lapse sequences of light. I set up my camera on a tripod to take photos at 10 second intervals, for 20-30ish minutes. I didn’t always notice the light change very much as I sat with my camera, but when I looked back over the photos afterwards there was a very clear change in refections and shadows and the position the light. I like this idea of the ability of photography to capture something changing or momentary and make it last, and the way it can help us see things which aren’t so obvious to the eye. After taking photos and editing some in Lightroom, I created the time lapse sequence videos in adobe premiere pro.
I started with taking a time lapse in the studio, looking at the amazing light and shadow formations through the window. I love the way the lines look as if they are intersecting in this time-lapse. Unfortunately my SD card ran out of memory while doing this, so the video is quite short. However, seeing the results encouraged me to continue to play with this idea and to see where it could go.
I took my next time lapse back at a spot which I had taken photos of previously. I was intrigued to see how the light changed in this area, and how the tree would cast shadows on the building. The time lapse shows the light spread across the building and the flicker of leaves in the breeze. It has an almost ethereal feel, looking up towards the sky.
Takapuna City Time Lapse
For my next few time lapses, I decided to go to Takapuna. I really wanted to take images in lots of cool city spots, however, I was beginning to feel very anxious about sitting on my own for a prolonged time in an unfamiliar setting. I also was finding it tricky to find spots where I could sit with my camera and not get in the way or be obvious to the people around me. In Takapuna, I figured I would still be able to take city-like photographs, in a very similar context, and feel much safer.
I found a wall which had pipes running along it, and I thought the shadows were interesting. It made me think about Uta Barth and the idea of photographing mundane spaces to reveal new perceptions.
I then took two more time lapses of a street with a beautiful light reflection from a building, one zoomed in and the other zoomed out. This captured snapshots of people passing by, going about their day, as well as cars going past, as the light slowly changes. It made me think about how everyone was busy walking and going places, while I was standing there, still, taking notice of the environment. It seemed like no one else was noticing the light on the building.
