Catching the Light

This work celebrates the wonder of light and colour. The title refers to the moment when something suddenly ‘catches’ our eye by ‘catching’ the light, thus creating a heightened perception of light and colour, which all too often we take for granted.

The eye perceives the colour of an object before the finer details of its shape and lines ; and this all the more vividly at certain times of the day and the year, when atmospheric conditions make colours sparkle, or the contrast between light and shadow almost blindingly stark. We can recollect this experience in our mind’s eye, but capturing the dynamics of the glance remains a challenge for photography.

Catching the Light seeks to recreate the vibrant, fleeting intensity of that sensation and was conceived in the spirit of early photographic experiments with minimal subsequent manipulation. The twelve photographs included in the book were nevertheless made with digital technology, and each of the images serves to illustrate one of twelve steps from violet to magenta along the spectrum of the RGB colour space in Adobe Photoshop.

The book itself is made in such a way as to engage the viewers’ attention and imagination, by allowing them to handle the images, vary the order of presentation and view them from different angles.

Text, photographs, printing  and design: Mireille Ribière
Slipcase: Philip Cockburn
30 x 31 cm, 58 loose leaves  with 12 tipped-in pigment ink photographic prints. Soft cover and slipcase, limited edition.

EXHIBITIONS
– Sheffield International Artist’s Book Prize Exhibition (7–31 October 2015), Bank Street Arts, Sheffield, UK
– Joburg Fringe 2014 (21–24 August 2014), Johannesburgh, South Africa