shadow machine

A few decades ago, before I was born, there was a gravel mine near the edge of town. It also closed before I was born, and in the time since the massive pits left behind have filled with rainwater after many cycles of spring. The water isn’t quite stagnant, but it can look that way in the fall. The land is now seductive and green – blackberry bushes, manroots, ivy, nutria, poppies, egrets, and skippers have all returned in abundance, entangled in a perpetual embrace. This is my favorite place to wander around, even though the branches often tear holes in the soft belly of my T shirts. Sometimes I bring someone with me – but I often go alone.

I was passing through one summer day when I spotted another person on the other brim of one of the pits. He was fully splayed out, bathing under the forceful summer sun. I didn’t think he could see me from behind the thickets but he did and we exchanged a timid glance. He held his ground and didn’t move a muscle, bearing a quiet smile. But I guess I was feeling self conscious that day. I turned quickly, disappeared behind an oak tree and decided to go back into town.

This past winter my car broke down and I began missing my walks through that dense landscape, and I couldn’t stop thinking about this boy. It was rainy and cold and grey and I was stuck at work and couldn’t physically get to there from here, but I wanted to conjure the company of his spirit. During a lunch break I decided to make a machine – a shadow machine – to summon that same light, hoping something would appear. I knew it wouldn’t work, but I kept trying anyway.

I was thinking about it more and realized that cameras aren’t that different than plants - they’re both machines that eat light. But photographs can make ghosts visible in a way that bramble branches cannot. I know that a photograph is just photons recorded on material, but I for some reason I keep looking, waiting, praying and making pictures.

— Colton Rothwell