Edwina Chen

Photography- The mechanics of photography, " writIng with light," is the action of a photon striking a molecule of silver in gelatin suspension. Just as unpolished silverware turns black, that in essence, is the nature of film and paper. The processing of a print awakens the latent silver causing it to bloom and rise to the surface, like whales coming up for air these black. These blacks are deep, laying in wait within the paper. Only the light calls the silver to appear, aligned by the camera, summoned by alchemy, caught; at the decisive moment.

The decisive moment - “Photography is not like painting, there is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see the composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative.” he said.

“Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.”

~Henri Cartier-Bresson, The Washington Post in 1957

Architecture is history, it has a story to tell. The style, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, is when a place had wealth, and what, cathedrals, palaces, government structures, is what society found important. The built environment speaks. The interruptions mark the rampage of war, the ravages of plague, the suffering of famine, and completion records the triumphs, the wealth, the success of it’s people.

Outside, light makes the exterior seem solid, stable, serene and timeless. I look for composition with quiet symmetry made dynamic by light. Inside, the interiors capture light and frame each beam as a sacred experience; fleeting and precious. Light is framed and captured by the surrounding darkness to render invisible space into tangible beauty.

Orient and Occident