Making Dark Celestials
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While creating my Celestial Bodies series, I spent six months examining how light moves over a spherical object. One of the traits I observed was that the shadow and highlight were always in opposite sides. This is of course due to the very nature of light. Particles moving in a straight line are blocked by the object, and thus the shadow is the absence of those particles.
I set out to create an impossible object. A spherical form whose shadow and highlight were on the same side. I expected this form to be slightly unsettling to look at, though the observer wouldn't know why. We tend to take for granted the way light works.
Over the course of six months, I explored various methods for lighting the spherical onject. I tried mirrors, secondary light sources, blocking and bouncing the light. I used many methods to try to sculpt the light, but it did not change the simple fact that shadow and highlight are always on opposite sides.
This meant that to had to find a way to bring the edge that catches the light and casts the shadow, closer to the shadow. This is when I realized that by inverting the sphere and using a concave form, I could do exactly that.
The softened light created a gentle gradient inside the bowl and indeed brought the shadow and highlight next to each other. I still had one problem though. I wanted an impossible object: a sphere that had shadow and highlight on the wrong sides.
By grinding down the edges of the bowl, only the thinnest hair of an edge is visible. It appears as if it truly is a sphere, creating an optical illusion that the object is convex rather than concave.
To complete the composition and explore deeper into the interactions of light and shadow, I used a second light source positioned directly over top of the form to fill in the shadows with a kiss of color. I used either a primary color - Red, Green, Blue or a secondary color - Cyan, Yellow, Magenta.
This secondary light source has the added effect of mixing with the primary light source to create some deeply complex and unique colors throughout the image.