Adventures in Celestial Mechanics

I sometimes find myself speaking with friends who are not familiar with contemporary fine art photography, and I try to differentiate this form of the medium from its cousin, the work of a talented amatuer nature photographer. ​“Well, it’s not just a pretty photo of the sunset,” I say, ​“It’s more than that. It’s concept, and the commitment to the long arc of a series.”

So I begin this blog by sharing a series of some very pretty photos of the moon, some of them right smack during the sunset. (Perhaps this supports my suspicions that, however much I’d like to define each photographic genre, the boundaries between them just don’t run in straight lines.)

Jim Nickelson’s creative curiosity leads him to tinker across the border from science into image and back, allowing each process to inform the other. Of all his series, I like his moons best, for the spare and quiet melody of the whole sequence.

Jim speaks and sees with humility and awe; he’s tuned in to something that many photographers remember from their first interactions walking about with the camera, namely, the startling wonder of the natural world. Listen to how he talks about the full moon. The moon, the sunset… sure, but also much more than that.

-Lisa W.