States of Incandescence
States of Incandescence is a photographic exploration of the human figure as it is shaped—and reshaped—by light. Inspired by Arthur Zajonc’s Catching the Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mind, this project engages with light not merely as an external phenomenon but as a participant in perception, emotion, and presence.
In these portraits, I investigate this idea by allowing light to take on an active role—distorting, veiling, piercing, or softening the human figure. The images are not strictly about the subjects themselves, but about the relationship between light and presence. In many of the photographs, the light behaves unpredictably, producing ethereal flares, fragmented reflections, or soft halos that appear to emerge from within the subject rather than outside of them. This is not post-production artifice; it is the natural outcome of allowing light to move freely in the photographic space, to shape and be shaped by the encounter.
Zajonc writes that light has always been both a physical and spiritual force—a bridge between the outer world and inner consciousness. In States of Incandescence, I explore this idea visually. Each portrait becomes a fleeting threshold where perception bends, and the seen slips into the sensed. The series attempts to capture moments when the body becomes less an object and more a vessel of energy, memory, or mood—when it flickers in a state of inner fire.