Tom Raworth: Shadows

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Untitled (Black on Gray): Mark Rothko (1903-1970), 1970: photo by ekenitr, 1 March 2015

 

once upon a time is no more
in the dark each page
seems written upon
light dawns
a high ceiling is not wasted space

Tom Raworth: Shadows, from Collected Poems, 2003

 

"Expired" expired film: Image made with expired film ("a roll of a roll of Kodak Plus-X 127 film, expired October 1953, shot through a Brownie Holiday at Zion National Park"): photo by Moominsean via moominstuff, 5 September 2006

"Expired" expired film: Image made with expired film ("a roll of a roll of Kodak Plus-X 127 film, expired October 1953, shot through a Brownie Holiday at Zion National Park"): photo by Moominsean via moominstuff, 5 September 2006

"Expired" expired film: Image made with expired film ("a roll of a roll of Kodak Plus-X 127 film, expired October 1953, shot through a Brownie Holiday at Zion National Park"): photo by Moominsean via moominstuff, 5 September 2006

 

Untitled (Black on Gray): Mark Rothko (1903-1970), 1970, oil on canvas: photo by ekenitr, 1 March 2015

Celestograph I (The Full Moon): photo by August Strindberg, 1893-94 (Manuscript collections, National Library of Sweden)

“I have worked like a devil and have traced the movements of the moon and the real appearance of the firmament on a laid-out photographic plate, independent from our misleading eye. I have done this without a camera and without a lens. [...] The photographic plate showed an area full of moons. Certainly, every spot on the photographic plate reflects a moon. The camera misleads as the eye does and the tube hoaxes the astronomers!”

-- August Strindberg: from a letter to Bengt Lidforss, a physiologist, 26 December 1893, quoted in Traces of/by nature: August Strindberg's photographic experiments of the 1890s: Katharina Steidl (2010)

The celestographs or coelestographs are photos of the sky taken without camera or lens. The plates were directly exposed to the night sky for some time and then developed. The plates are now lost and only prints remain. August Strindberg thought he had captured the stars, so he called the photos celestographs.

 

The series was taken during the winter of 1893-1894 in Dornach in Austria where Strindberg was staying with his wife Frida Uhl.

 

Strindberg distrusted lenses and thought they gave a distorted rendering of reality. The celestographs were therefore an attempt to produce a more objective view of stars and planets. He sent the prints to the French Astronomical Society, where they were discussed.

-- National Library of Sweden

 

Celestograph IV: The Sun: photo by August Strindberg, 1893-94 (Manuscript collections, National Library of Sweden)

Celestograph VI: Starry Sky: photo by August Strindberg, 1893-94 (Manuscript collections, National Library of Sweden)

Celestograph VII: Stars: photo by August Strindberg, 1893-94 (Manuscript collections, National Library of Sweden)



Celestograph VIII: Stars. Region of  Orion: photo by August Strindberg, 1893-94 (Manuscript collections, National Library of Sweden)

 

No. 14: Mark Rothko (1903-1970), 1960, oil on canvas: photo by Catherine, 21 October 2008

Untitled (Black, Red over Black) (detail): Mark Rothko (1903-1970), 1970, oil on canvas (Gemeente Museum, Den Haag): photo by Michelle @c, 3 January 2013

 

Parting shot from the #RockyFire. Headed back to SJSU.: image via SJSU FireWeatherLab@FireWeatherLab, 30 July 2015

Untitled (Black, Red over Black), (detail): Mark Rothko (1903-1970), 1970, oil on canvas (Gemeente Museum, Den Haag): photo by Michelle @c, 3 January 2013

Tom and Val Raworth, Hove, 13 July 2015: photo by Tabellion from Five Get High in Hove via Tom Raworth: Notes, 15 July 2015