Artwork Via Lactea (series on-going)

The works in the Via Lactea series are created by photographing very small sections of the night sky stars over the course of many hours on the same segment of Kodak Ektar film. This labour intensive process is typically carried out in remote locations under a new (no) moon to avoid any light pollution.

This additive exposure technique is one that astronomers use to image very distant galaxies. In this way, very faint sources can be rendered brightly enough to see clearly, when otherwise they would be all but invisible.

It is important to note that the completed images are not representative of the night sky in its entirety; astronomers would not recognize any familiar patterns in these star fields. However, by the inversion of normal scanning and processing I am able to achieve the illusion of seeing white stars on a luminous blue background, an effective reminder that the stars are sill “out” during the daytime.