Suspended in Light

In the early 1840s, William Henry Fox Talbot described a new process he called photographic drawing—an attempt to capture the natural world through the action of light alone. Writing to his friend, the astronomer Sir John Herschel, he requested spare flower bulbs to aid in his experiments, believing the process might serve botanical study. Herschel, ever poetic, replied not just with bulbs but with a word: photography.

Talbot's idea of drawing with light—of using light itself as both subject and instrument—remains foundational, even nearly two centuries later. This series of twelve black and white photographs is a continuation of that original impulse: to observe, to record, and to reimagine the natural form through the quiet medium of light. Begun in 2019, the work focuses on Tillandsia—air plants—whose sculptural presence and complex textures make them ideal subjects for this light-based drawing.

What draws me to Tillandsia is not just their remarkable ability to live untethered to soil, but the way their forms invite close attention. Their leaves, often covered in tiny trichomes, catch and reflect light in endlessly varied ways—producing an almost metallic sheen that seems made for monochrome. By working in black and white, I aim to set aside the distraction of colour, encouraging a deeper focus on tonality, shape, and the interplay of shadow and illumination. The intention is not to document but to draw—to trace their presence in light.

Minimalism plays a crucial role here. Isolated against dark grounds, each plant becomes a mark, a gesture—part of a silent dialogue between light and form. Their curves, folds, and twists speak a quiet language, inviting contemplation rather than demanding attention. Just as Talbot’s early images sought to fix nature onto the page, these photographs seek to explore it more slowly, more intimately.

This is not a catalogue of species. It is a homage—to the architecture of plants, to the meditative process of observing them, and above all to Fox Talbot’s notion of photographic drawing. In these images, light is both brush and ink. And the plants, rather than simply subjects, become collaborators in an ongoing conversation about perception, form, and the poetry of light.