Obscura

On April 8, 2024, from Oakwood, Ohio, I photographed the stages of a total solar eclipse. Each photograph delineates a discrete moment in the celestial sequence: the advancing partial phases, the narrowing crescent of the sun, the ephemeral darkness of totality, and the re-emergence of light. The series unfolds as a temporal narrative, charting the precise geometry of cosmic alignment while allowing the event’s sense of mystery and transformation to emerge.

Formally, the photographs move between document and abstraction. The sun’s shifting disc, shown in successive stages, suggests the pared-down geometry of modernist art while remaining rooted in the direct observation of a single place and time. This duality, of scientific record and aesthetic metaphor, is central to the work, which was nominated in the Nature category at the 18th Annual International Color Awards.