Helios

This photographic series is about the sun: the light to which everything is connected. The sun affects our planet’s climate, weather, and tides. It provides us with heat and life-giving light. With greater ultraviolet exposure and rising surface temperatures on earth, the sun is stronger than ever. These changes serve as a reminder of the interconnectedness between modern human life and the environment. Stephanie Paine uses a pinhole camera which requires long exposure times. During the exposure, Paine points the pinpoint lens toward the direction of the sun and moves with the camera to create a light-writing technique that resembles the qualities of the penetrating sun. The images balance abstraction with identifiable parts of the landscape. The result portrays the sun as a neon line piercing the sky.

Stephanie Paine is a visual artist working within the expanded field of photography utilizing digital and traditional technologies with hand-built cameras. Landscape is a recurring foundation in her work to address the connection of land to the human experience while bringing awareness to the impermanence of the natural world. She teaches photography in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.