Plan A or Plan B?

The Black Sun or Sonnenrad

The Black Sun or Sonnenrad, symbol of the Nazi party and still banned in various European countries, originating from ancient solar symbolism, now perverted through its associations. Image from wikicommons.

Eclipse photos and narrative confusion

Now presenting, for the first time ever..... some photos from the Siberian Eclipse mission. Starting to put together some ideas for how my book will flow using rough scans from prints as a guideline- plan being to only scan the negs of the definite contenders after doing some test scans to get an understanding of the colour parameters. This will probably turn out to be a silly way of going about it but it seems logical at the moment. Sequencing is going to be as much of a mission as going to Siberia, some things work visually together but that doesn't necessarily mean that the meaning is enhanced. The easiest thing to do is one image per spread on the right but for my purposes that then loses some possible connections. I 'd like to layer up as many connections as possible without losing the individual resonance of each image. Arse, and I haven't even gotten near print issues yet... but in a way it is enjoyable almost like playing Snap trying out different relationships between the photos.

Stained Glass and the Pencil of Nature

Off on increasing tangents now with the project. Looking at how the Medieval Church incorporated solar symbols into their iconography. Stained glass transformed the light flooding into the dim churches, enhancing the glory of God's presence, and his sign- the rainbow. Many early examples, featuring solar symbols which echo alchemical illustrations, were destroyed during the Reformation: but even in more modern examples the sun symbol is hinted through halos and St. Catherine's spoked wheel. Now just got to find out how and which to photograph...

Christ as Sol Invictus

Christ as Sol Invictus, the invisible sun, showing the influence of Roman sun worship upon the development of Christianity. Some information from someone who clearly knows more than I do here, and some translations of contemporaneous texts here.

The Sun Museum

A great additional benefit of travelling to Novosibirsk for the eclipse was the discovery of the Sun Museum. Essentially one man's life work, the gallery gathers together representations of the sun, from around the world collected and carved by Valery Lipenkov. The museum is kind of the story of his life and sun fascination in physical form, laid out in rooms bearing the ghost of their former functions as a home or a bar. I liked the photographs of Valery, wearing a beret and beaming beatifically alongside various gurus and shrines. Sweetness aside the museum was fascinating, showing the different forms that heliolatry takes: the reindeer of Siberia, eclipse dragons devouring the sun, the swastika reversed at the solstices. The night before the eclipse they held a ceremony to protect the sun. As far as I could tell, given my mastery of Russian extends to four words, each person there recited poems, sang songs and danced for the sun. On the way up to the museum I mistakenly walked into a cosmetic surgery... disturbing some woman post op with pads over her eyes who lurched up on me. The whole museum experience was weird and uplifting, and gives some deeper perspective on the symbolism of the sun.

Exhibition at the No Soap Gallery

Returned from Siberia! My show, 'Photography and Spiritual Experience', is on at the No Soap Gallery in Novosibirsk until August 13th. Massive thanks to Artem, Constantine and Olya for all their help.