On this project I have combined a series of images creating a confrontation between two opposites; light and shadows, darkness and brightness. Taking into account that there is so much written about what is light and what it represents I have decided to use a series of quotes from writers, philosophers or scientists to support the pictures with the aim of presenting an open wide body of work where the viewer has the freedom to reflect on. There is only one question that I would like to raise with this project;
It is possible for us to percibe light or darkness alone or do we need from the presence of both to be able to perceive one and other?
Quotes
It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.
- Aristotle
The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
- Henry David Thoreau
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
- T. S. Eliot
The beginnings and ends of shadow lie between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow.
- Leonardo da Vinci
To attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood. It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing the Darkness. It cannot be.
- Frank Herbert
I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.
- Og Mandino
Shadow is a colour as light is, but less brilliant; light and shadow are only the relation of two tones.
- Paul Cezanne
Look at light and admire its beauty. Close your eyes, and then look again: what you saw is no longer there; and what you will see later is not yet.
“No matter how hard you fight the darkness, every light casts a shadow, and the closer you get to the light, the darker that shadow becomes.”
- Plato, Critias
You don't find light by avoiding the darkness.”
- S. Kelley Harrell
“Light is the shadow of god”
- Plato
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
- Plato
Text by David Guillén