Honorable Mention TOKYO-2016 Fine Art / Abstract

Photographing Time

  • Photographer
    Steven Duncan

Modern cameras are able to produce images at an indefatigable rate, so much so that it's often said that more photographs have been produced within the last 12 months than all images created throughout the rest of human history combined. Was there a way of slowing down? That is, to capture a single image that encompasses everything that happens within a time frame akin to that 12 months through which the entirety of human visual artistic endeavour has been more than doubled in depth due to modern photography. These are a selection from a series of images that together represents everything that has happened within frame over the past 24 months. Each image's exposure time ranges from 4 months through to 6 months in length. The white lines you see are the sun's star-trail as it moves through the sky during the exposure. The method by which I achieved this is a process called 'solorisation' with my own unique twist I developed through very patient experimentation. Using my homemade equipment, I was able to place my cameras in opportune places and bolt or magnetise them in position for months on end. A large percentage of cameras were lost due to vandalism or theft, but the cameras that survived have produced the images in this collection.