Lens 2025
In today’s digital era, where high-end cameras are embedded in smartphones, photography has shifted from a specialized craft to an everyday act. The accessibility of image-making and instant social media sharing blurs the lines between amateur and professional photography, raising questions about the traditional photographer’s role. This shift became apparent to me in 2021, the year the Webb Space Telescope launched. That same year, my daughter, Violeta, gifted me a telescope, a simple gesture that inspired this project. While others turned their cameras toward the familiar, I chose to explore the vast unknown, space.
The title "Lens" references the origins of photography, particularly Nicéphore Niépce’s 1816 camera, which featured a cylindrical tube and a magnifying glass. The Moon has been a subject of photography since Louis Daguerre’s 1839 experiments, yet capturing an object nearly 250,000 miles away with my own equipment felt like a profound accomplishment. It was a personal reclamation of my role as a photographer in an era of mass image production. My moon photographs became the foundation for a broader project, blending star images from my backyard with constructed studio environments. These layered images formed galaxies, nebulous, and constellations—artificial yet evocative of deep space. Misty bathroom shadows added depth, while composition, light, and scale followed Surrealist influences.
Inspired by historical photographic tools, I designed my own lenses using PVC tubes, assembling them with magnifying glass and color transparency. These handmade lenses offer multiple viewing experiences: placed flat, positioned near light, set on a table, or mounted on a tripod. Looking through the black tube, the viewer becomes an active participant, an experience reminiscent of a telescope or early camera obscura.
A larger installation of “Lens” has 30 lenses, mounted on tripods in a gallery, with an audio soundscape. This installation invites viewers to explore a cosmic world, not discovered by NASA, but imagined in my studio. With 48 years of experience behind the lens, I offer an alternative way to engage with the universe, prioritizing artistic vision over scientific precision.
As an aging artist, I find the unknown a powerful force for creativity. With Lens, I continue a tradition of capturing and constructing new visions in the universe. Lens reaffirms the value of the photographer’s vision, proving that even in an era of infinite photographs, there is still space to imagine the unseen.