Bayfordbury Observatory Series
University of Hertfordshire
The Bayfordbury Series is a collection of long exposure solargraphs which condense an extended period of time into a single frame. The series is broken into two parts. Part I showcases images captured during the Summer to Winter months of 2011. This also includes ‘Perpetuity’, the eight year long exposure as featured on National Geographic and ‘Days in the Sun’ as featured on NASA. Part II showcases images captured during Winter 2011 to Summer 2012.
The photographic process makes permanent the emitted or reflected light of a particular moment in time. Observational astronomers use telescopes to observe stars, galaxies and other astronomical objects. Long exposures show the Sun’s trails throughout the sky as the Earth orbits the Sun. Our human eye is only ever able to witness the Sun as a sphere in the sky and we have a concept of its movement as it rises in the East and sets in the West. Solargraphs however, have the ability to show the Sun’s trails as a continuous visualisation of light. High speed digital photography allows us to view the ‘extreme fast’. Solargraphy, a form of ‘still’ time lapse shows us the ‘extreme slow’. Solargraphs are completely devoid of the life and movement which are normally visible to us. Eerily, they seem to tap into that ‘other place with another time’ where humankind is absent.
‘The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty’.
- Carl Sagan
All the following images were captured by drinks cans lined with a sheet of B&W photographic paper.
Through the medium of pinhole, I have removed myself from the act of photographing. I enable sunlight to draw its own scene over an extended period of time by setting up light sensitive materials in objects such as beer cans. This rudimentary form of photography has been given a new lease of life through our digital technology. The merger of old photographic processes and new scanning hardware allows exposures of several years to be achieved.
Pinhole photography is a basic yet magical image making method which does not rely on lenses, batteries or any form of technology. Cameras can be made from simple light tight boxes lined with a piece of photographic paper and a pinhole at the opposite end. Instead of pressing a shutter to open the aperture, the pinhole is uncovered to let in the light for the required time. Illuminated objects reflect light in all directions, including some light that enters the pinhole aperture forming an inverted and laterally reversed image on the light sensitive material, the same as in a lens camera.
These simple cameras often produce powerful and emotive images in their typical soft focus and dreamlike quality. A ‘solargraph’ is achieved by securely fixing a pinhole camera in a position where it will not be moved or disturbed during a long period of exposure. This long term pinhole exposure tracks the Sun over a period of months or years in which separate light trails form as the Sun's elevation changes relative to the northern hemisphere of the earth.
Perpetuity
(Digital Positive file from paper negative)
(Negative on B&W Photographic paper)
Eight year long exposure as featured on National Geographic,
Captured: Summer 2012 - Summer 2020
Photographing puts our own mortality into perspective. Long exposures show no living creatures, capturing only the still objects that inhabit the scene. It is a reality in which we do not take centre stage but merely play our minute part, the briefness of a human life seemingly unnoticed in the vastness of our Universe.
Part I
Summer - Winter
Bayfordbury Observatory Series Part I captures Summer 2012 - Winter 2012.
Days in the Sun
(Digital Positive file from paper negative)
(Negative on B&W Photographic paper)
This image overlooking the optical telescopic domes and radio telescope the at the Bayfordbury Observatory generated international interest. It was featured as NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day in January 2012.
Captured: 21 June 2011 - 21 December 2011
Six month exposure from Summer solstice - Winter solstice,
(Digital positive file from paper negative)
(Negative on B&W Photographic paper)
Bayfordbury opens its telescopic domes to the public during the winter months. Over one thousand people would have been present at some point within the exposure time. People, the lunar cycles and the stars remain invisible to us. Forever held in perpetuity.
Captured: 21 June 2011 - 21 December 2011
Patrick Moore Building.
The following four images are 6 months exposures from cans attached to the Patrick Moore building at the Bayfordbury Observatory. The cans were attached to a drainpipe in ascending order. Each image displays a different angle of the telescopic domes and captures light differently due to the top cans being obscured by the overhanging guttering.
Moore I
(Digital positive file from paper negative)
(Negative on B&W Photographic paper)
Solargraphs can not be as easily read as an ordinary photograph. In this image there are clear light streaks in the foreground, its origin a puzzle at first. Because of the long exposure, things of which we are not aware, happen within the frame. Also, our human eye does not detect changes over a longer period. Solargraphs make the invisible become visible and it takes our mind a little bit longer to realise what it is looking at.
Captured: 21 June 2012 - 21 December 2012
Moore II
(Digital positive file from paper negative)
(Negative on B&W Photographic paper)
Hung higher resulted in the ‘summer arches’ being cut off as the roof was obscuring the view. The Sun has burnt an array of pinks, blues and purples into the paper.
Captured: 21 June 2012 - 21 December 2012
Moore III
(Digital positive file from paper negative)
(Negative on B&W Photographic paper)
The visible band of arches gets thinner and less colourful as the cans are hung higher and in a more sheltered position on the drainpipe. However, the reason for the light streaks becomes clear after some extra editing. It is the reflection of the Sun on a parked car.
Captured: 21 June 2012 - 21 December 2012
Moore IV
(Digital positive file from paper negative)
(Negative on B&W Photographic paper)
The higher the can is positioned, the more the car becomes visible. The car was initially captured on day one and it was not parked in exactly the same spot thereafter. When light hits the photographic paper, it records what it sees first and once this chemical reaction happens on the paper, it can not be undone. In the darker areas where this chemical reaction happened to a lesser extent, the light will carry on erasing and overwriting.
Captured: 21 June 2012 - 21 December 2012
Part II
Winter - Summer
Bayfordbury Observatory Series Part II shows the continuation of the series, capturing the Winter 2011 - Summer 2012.
Arcus
(Digital positive file from paper negative)
(Negative on B&W Photographic paper)
Captured: 21 December 2011 - 21 June 2012
Six month exposure from Winter solstice - Summer solstice,
(Digital positive file from paper negative)
(Negative on B&W Photographic paper)
Captured: 21 December 2011 - 21 June 2012
Dawn
(Digital positive file from paper negative)
(Negative on B&W Photographic paper.
Looking East, this solargraph captures the point where the sun starts to clim upwards. Even though one would expect to find a high band of Sun trails during the period of 6 months, this image only shows the beginnings of the trails, the rising of the Sun, hence the lower arcs. The Sun’s trails start in the middle of the paper and as the summer solstice nears, the arches increase in height and spread. The curve of the can however, distorts the trails and seems to squeeze hem together at the edge of the image.
Captured: 21 December 2011 - 21 June 2012
Dusk
(Digital positive file from paper negative)
(Negative on B&W Photographic paper)
Looking towards the West, this image shows the opposite. It captures the Sun having risen and then setting. Being pointed in a different direction to the previous image, it carries on where the earlier image stopped.
Captured: 21 December 2011 - 21 June 2012
The Lake.
The following six images capture the Bayfordbury Observatory lake during the Winter to Summer months of 2011 - 2012.
This series of images is unusual due to the colours which were produced on the black and white photographic paper.
Light sensitive paper has a gelatin silver halide emulsion which form small specks of silver metal on their surface after being exposed to light. This reaction produces a ‘latent’ image. A latent image is only made visible after putting it through darkroom development processing. In the case of solargraphs, which are extremely over-exposed, the image becomes etched and clearly visible on the sheet of paper in the can.
The colours in black and white photo graphic paper exposed to light comes from finely divided metallic silver growing on the silver halide grains. Clumps grow so that the first visible signs of a printout image are yellowish, darkening to sepia than a maroon brown as the particle size increases. Eventually the maximum exposure produces a slate grey shade. Reversing an image with this natural range of variations will produce interesting colours, which are unrelated to the real colour of the scene. However, lightly exposed parts will be bluish and shades of green/cyan will likely appear in the midtones, both of which will lend the positive images a natural look.
Cosmic Signum
(Digital positive file from paper negative)
(Negative on B&W Photographic paper)
The combination of the ‘human finger print’ and the ‘solar print’ are reminders that everything living is connected to everything else by taking us back to the beginning of the Universe. We are after all, made from the interiors of collapsing stars.
Captured: 21 December 2011 - 21 June 2012
Lacus Borealis
(Digital positive file from paper negative)
Captured: 21 December 2011 - 21 June 2012
(Negative on B&W Photographic paper)
Ventus
(Digital positive file from paper negative)
(Negative on B&W Photographic paper)
These long exposures are weather maps as well as calendars. In this image, the beer can camera was not secured properly. As the wind rocked the cans, the following two solargraphs managed to capture the wind’s movement.
Captured: 21 December 2011 - 21 June 2012
Caligo
(Digital positive file from paper negative)
(Negative on B&W Photographic paper)
Captured: 21 December 2011 - 21 June 2012
Lacus
(Digital positive file from paper negative)
(Negative on B&W Photographic paper)
Captured: 21 December 2011 - 21 June 2012