Intensities, light at the threshold of pain

This series was in part inspired by Mark Changizi's remarks on visual pain.

Beyond this, I wonder: Are these photographs? Well, of course they are. I took them with a camera. And it's obvious that the first two represent something, tassles at the tops of reeds. The third's perhaps not so obvious. You think maybe it's clouds? Well, yes, that's what it is.

Clouds and the sun. But you can't really see the sun. It's there, in the middle, the light so bright it flooded the camera to the point where the sun's outline didn't register.

Yet somehow the fact that these images do represent something is beside the point. I'm just using those objects as a way to play with the light. To be sure, I'm not actually doing anything with or to those objects myself. They're just there. All I do is point my camera and shoot. But it's the play of light that interests me. If I were to take this into the studio I'd be setting up lights and objects and seeing how they interact with one another.

Hmmmm....