Stroboscopic Photos 4

Here's another stroboscopic image of the static or tranquil variety. Again just three exposures, each clearly visible.

A painting I did from this one has a full moon in the sky, top left. I might have done this in reaction to the 'floating in space' feeling that these more static images have. Also they
look like apparitions because of their translucency.

These images are the result of hours of work in a dark room with the only light coming from a flashing strobe. This one is one of my favourites. I can remember letting go of the
shutter release knowing I was going to really like the result.

I almost feel that the woman becomes a species of moving creature never before observed in this way. Floaty and feminine but possibly nonetheless a predatory animal (or one
with a sting in its tail). Is this why I like it? Maybe!

This is the first time I have ever attempted any verbal analysis of these images or to become conscious of how they work. It's not really easy for me to do. I am finding myself
surprised as I become aware of the subliminal impact of the chance visual associations they contain.

Many pages on the internet with stroboscopic images in them are scientific and technical. I am aware that this is really coming from somewhere else.

I am coming, I suppose, out of the tradition of Muybridge and Edgerton. They come, I think, more from a point of scientific observation. They study the movement of humans and
animals with the same objective detatchment as when they study a golf ball or a water droplet. This has its advantages and its clarity. But their images, along with those of
Davidhazy, nevertheless arrive at an aesthetic dimension which makes them memorable and fascinating.

I feel there is a sense in which this aesthetic point at which they arrived, whether or not it was their main aim, has been my point of departure. They have given me a basis to
work from and the gateway to the sphere in which I have operated; the point of intersection between the scientific and the aesthetic spheres.