What is light? They say seeing is believing but what is it we are actually seeing? Light is such a huge component of how we interpret the world and yet it can be so deceptive, it has such curious properties; it can make things appear larger or smaller. make them disappear or change their shape or even accelerate or slow down action.
Light, traveling through space and time, has always been a thing of great intrigue to me, particularly in relation to how it behaves in the physical world and how it behaves in our minds. Light is a bizarre phenomenon and this image for me is a great example of exactly those bizarre qualities.This was a long exposure that a friend of mine took of the Golden Gate Bridge and its a fantastic rendering of the rhythm and pulse of the city. At first glance one could say that there is a stream of light flowing uninterrupted and that it is a single source and it gives the impression of a lightning pace. Yet in truth we know that the unbroken "continuity" of light seen in this image is actually a compilation of thousands of freeze frame moments capturing individual light sources over time, travelling slowly in the same direction. Time is obviously not affected by light but by looking at this image its hard to believe light isn't altering the flow of time.
I find it amazing how an image like this can capture so much more than the physical world and can even speak, through light in this case, about the essence of a place and a society. Whats more, it amazes me to think that not so long ago the view of that bridge would have been completely different and how much and how fast things change. We truly live in a world of light!
Anyways, the point I wanted to make about what first captivated me about this image is the deceptive and malleable nature of light and how it can create such fascinating optic illusions. What does it mean that light can be such an influential force in the human psyche and that it can so easily be manipulated to create specific effects?
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