Lightless
How does one photograph darkness? Or night-time? Or anything else that occurs away from the light? The history of photography reveals many answers to these questions, from Nadar’s experiments with magnesium lamps in the catacombs of Paris to George Shira III”s night-time photographs of animals, which appear in the same National Geographic photographic archive as this image. One hundred and fifty images originally published in National Geographic Magazine are now on display at the Steven Kasher Gallery in Chelsea. They are a small sample of the thousands of original prints being sold as the Society converts its collection to digital images.
This West Virginian coal miner was photographed in 1944 by B. Anthony Stewart, but the high contrast and rough texture of the black and white image still seem fresh. The photograph could refer to the history of photography obliquely. The lamp on the miner’s helmet could be a photographer’s flash. If so, could he be photographing us? Are we the ones pinned by that harsh light and blank gaze?
The man’s pale eyes are striking in their disruption of our expectations: the skin is darkened with soot so the eyes stand out in parodic blackface, though the expression tells us this is no joke. It is as if the brutal, blackening work underground has left this miner with only two small windows of light to show his own humanity.
In: contemporary, documentary, gaze, photography, portraiture · Tagged with: B. Anthony Stewart, National Geographic Magazine