Latent

“In analogue photography, a latent image forms in the instant light hits photographic film. This invisible impression occurs when silver halide crystals in the film’s emulsion undergo a photochemical reaction. Though unseen until development, this latent image holds all the information needed to create the final photograph. It exists in a liminal space – present yet invisible, real yet unrevealed.”

Between Image and Truth: A Reflection

What lies between an image and reality? Perhaps it’s the dance of light and shadow, or the traces of what we think we see.

Think of those pictures that live in our minds – not physical photos, but memories. They’re like shadows that hide in quiet corners of our thoughts. Each time we remember them, they shift and change, just like stories that grow different in each telling.

When does a moment first stick in our memory? And in that split second when a camera captures light – just a tiny fraction of time – could there be something else there? Something between the mechanical click and the final image? Maybe that’s the truth we’re actually looking for – the one that makes us question what we think we know about photographs and memory itself.

In this work, I challenged the boundaries of digital photography’s raw capture capabilities. By pushing technology to its limits, I discovered unexpected inversions – black bed sheets appearing white, white robes transformed to black, all without digital manipulation. These images begin at their rawest state, the digital latent image.

A portrait emerges from the darkness of a hotel room, captured through extended exposure with a modest camera. The face, caught in available light, appears as if through memory itself – faded yet present in its unedited raw form. Moving further into experimental territory, I developed a technique capturing slow-moving figures in digital video, combining frames to create a flowing sequence of long-exposure moments.

The series concludes with a performance piece – my thumb, scanned methodically over five minutes, stretches to match my full height. This high-resolution image stands as both document and duration, marking time through the slow reveal of flesh and light.

Images in order of appearance:

• A black bed sheet. (Digital image pushed to its limit by exposure on camera to create white from black)
• A white robe in white. (Digital image pushed to its limit by exposure on camera to create black from white)
• A hotel room in Amsterdam (A long exposure attempt to paint a portrait available light and dark areas)
• A portrait with a slow movement (Portrait shot in 2mins 40sec video) 
• A thumb in size of its owner (Thumb scanned in height of 173cm in 300DPI in several minutes)