Thinking of how to conceptually complement and contrast my existing body of work led me to create a photo series that explored the liminality and expressive potential of light physiograms – these are single long exposures of flashlight(s) spinning around in pendulum motion on a string suspended from a ceiling that result in abstract “light paintings”. 

I then came across physiograms, and they became a perfect alternative medium as I was a lot more familiar with long-exposure photography. I ended up being able to produce the similar sort of intellectually stimulating and highly mechanical aesthetic of a harmonograph, plus I was able to add original flair and layers of complexity to the images through altering physical variables such as the actual room the photos were shot in, pendulum configurations and the type of flashlight used; on top of the manual settings on my camera and post-processing.

The photos with inverted negatives and a white background resembled harmonographs, in a way they looked like a fine point drawing, or a fluid stroke painting with the flashlight that had three bulbs and produced thicker, and less controlled strokes – changing flashlights was like using a different paintbrush.

There were two photo locations (rooms) in which the entire photo series was shot, and each had their distinctive characteristics that altered the visual generation of the physiograms. The setting-up of the photo rooms was very much like preparing for a science lab – it had to be carefully prepped to ensure favourable processing and outcome. I first transformed the school kiln room into a makeshift darkroom by using black paperboard to black out the windows and eliminate external traces of light in order to achieve a purely black ‘canvas’ that the light could whirl around. Next, I suspended the string from a ceiling fixture and attached a Maglite in ‘candle mode’ – at this stage, I took a trial and error approach with different string and mass configurations to alter the period and explore the different patterns that could be created.

For these images, I let the flashlight swing about for a minute, and then switched on the room lights (two fluorescent light diffusers) in the end for half a second. The light fixtures add to the physiograms as a complement to its symmetry.

With the curvilinear perspective of the lines, some of the physiograms look as if they’re three-dimensional objects on two-dimensional surfaces. I used a radial filter on a few of the photos to create a visual mask in the light pattern and a ‘dense concentration’ of light.

With heavy post-processing done in Lightroom 5, I decided to adjust the exposure and shadows of the images: the colour treatment (temperature/tint), presence (vibrance, saturation) and tone curve (invert colour negative). By inverting the colour negative and increasing the shadows I achieved an ‘X-ray look’ that revealed the context of the room, making an apparent superimposition.

I ended up selecting 8 images to print on 16 x 20” satin matte poster paper and trimmed them to fit 15 ¾ x 19 ¾ frames. The images were split into four tonally black and white backgrounds – I paired the black images with black frames and white images with white frames without mat boards in an attempt to achieve a more modern and seamless presentation.

What I liked most about this project was the liberating process and state of uncertainty associated with generative art. I was able to break the rules and take creative risks as opposed to a lot of my other projects that are rigorously approached and technically planned which perhaps limited my creative expression and willingness to experiment.