Inventions from Photography: Light, Shadow and Optical Transformations

The author analyzes the experiments he conducted in photography and kinetic art during the 1970s and 1980s. Through exploring the visual effects of three-dimensional (3D) montage, he came to construct photo-objects and photo-installations. He regards photography as a tool of preliminary design, which refers not only to the production of objects, but also to the creation of a situation or a visual trick documented by the camera. After a series of kinetic compositions with light, he came to the conclusion that light needs to be structured (by means of lenses, masks, etc.) in order to create further visually interesting transformations through motion, colour and overlay.