Aura

8. 
The poem is not the world.
It isn't even the first page of the world.

But the poem wants to flower, like a flower.
It knows that much.
It wants to open itself,
like the door of a little temple,
so that you might step inside and be cooled and refreshed,
and less yourself than part of everything.

-Mary Oliver, section 8 of "Flare" in the Leaf and the Cloud: A Poem
(Da Capo Press, 2000)

With the increasing emphasis on technology, gadgets, and commerce in photography and the endless stream of visual babble online I began to critically question the practice of photography. I needed to work with my hands, but again in a new city in 2010, I was unable to find a community darkroom. I found instead a process that allowed me to use my expired black and white photo papers, work camera less and almost chemical free. Lumen prints are the alchemical reaction what is created between organic matter and fogged, expired, black and white photo paper upon contact in the sun.