Capture Speaker Series “Writing with Light”: Photography in Motion

“We all know what light is, but it is not easy to tell what it is.” —Samuel Johnson

Photography is understood to be instantaneous, capturing a split-second in time by trapping light onto a piece of film. But is this really the case?

Artist Adad Hannah is well known for pushing the boundaries of what photography “is,” masking moving video as still photographs, portraying motion through stillness, and playing with how we comprehend optics. Dr. Sarah Burke is a professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy and the Department of Chemistry at UBC, who understands photography from its most basic unit, the photon, and how this is translated into what it is humans see—or what we think we see.

Hannah and Burke discuss the medium of photography from their differing viewpoints of artist and scientist and attempt to pin down what, exactly, makes a photograph “a photograph.”

The talk will be moderated by John O’Brian, professor of Art History at UBC. He specializes in modern art history, theory, and criticism. His current research is on nuclear photography in North America and Japan.
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RSVP: inform@informinteriors.com

Admission is free of charge.
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The Speaker Series is a co-presentation between Capture Photography Festival and Inform Interiors. The 2016 edition entitled “Writing with Light” brings luminary artists, curators, and researchers together to discuss how lens-based technology is transforming culture.