Creative Silhouettes is the name of a printing business that does vinyl wraps. I make no comment one way or the other about the business, since I’ve never used their services. However, I do like the name, especially when it appears next to shadows of fence slats cast across a wall. Technically, the images which follow are images of shadows, not of silhouettes, but I’ve never been one to get caught up in technical details.
The general wisdom is that the best times to shoot are early morning and late evening when shadows are longer; long shadows produce higher contrast images. But the general wisdom assumes that the “ground” where the shadow is cast lies flat beneath the feet, as it does for a conventional landscape. If the “ground” is a vertical wall, the general wisdom no longer applies.
I remember reading about how astronomers used to be called as expert witnesses to testify at trials where photographs were entered as crucial pieces of evidence. If they knew where the photograph had been taken then, by using the shadows to calculate the angle of incidence of the sunlight, they could determine the date and time when the photograph had been taken. Now, thanks to exif data, astronomers have one less source of income.
When I shot this photo, I was thinking of an exercise I did in my junior high art class — a positive/negative space lesson with light in a dark space mirrored by dark in a light space. But now, especially on the first anniversary of the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, I see a different inversion of the space. I hadn’t given it any thought at the time, but I see now that the “white” that occupies the “black” space is, in fact, black skin. Maybe this is the kind of inversion that a liberationist account of race demands.
