Etchings: Solargraphy in Cornwall is a project to capture ultra-long exposures of landscapes of Cornwall. Cornwall’s magnificent coastline, long-standing ruined tin mines and picturesque harbours remain largely unchanged through the last century. This project is one to celebrate the natural and man-made landscapes and history of Cornwall, showing their unchanging states in time.
Using a Natural Density filter, photographers are able to compress time into a photograph. To achieve even longer exposures, making the exposure of each photograph days, weeks, to months long, a photographic paper is exposed in a custom built pinhole camera for a long period of time, so that the sun’s path across the sky each day will be traced and etched onto the paper, a technique known as ‘solargraphy’.
A ‘solargraph’ documents the landscape in a way that humans are not able to perceive. An image compresses the passing of time, the changes of season, and the tilt and spin of the planet.