S H Bean ~ Photographer

The latent Shadow

By S H Bean on November 23, 2014

Rendered popular by the darkroom Photographic process the retinal image of the shadow re-emphasizes the curiosity of the latent image. Each retinal image is a photographic snapshot of the object in space and time which especially in the case of the shadow, which for me and for my work, may be regarded as the latent persistence of an un-fixed Image on the retina. If as Ruskin noted: “the perception of solid form is entirely a matter of experience” (Sept 2014 blog) then the retinal image of the shadow is not fixed, but latent, and as such a succession of shapes and densities that reveal their true non-retinal form and density when we don’t look at them.