True Confession: I have multiple image crushes going on at once. Three to be exact, all from Clarissa Bonet’s series Chasing Light. In this project, Bonet studies the shape and behavior of sunlight and shadow and then uses them to construct small everyday moments with the city as her backdrop.

As I wander through her images, swatches of light dart across the surface of her prints. Like a lighting director in a theater, she creates deliberate lines of light to hide and reveal the dramas that play out on her set. The trajectory of these beams guide the trajectory of my vision– they point me to look up, or to meander down towards the bottom of an image. But sometimes, these shafts of light continue on into the next print. And this is where the play truly begins. 

The first scene opens with a man standing alone in the street. He holds a camera, what does he see in his lens? The stage goes dark, and the scene has transitioned. Two figures sit on imposing marble benches, their backs are to us as they stare out into the dark shadows that surround them. The stage goes dark, and the streak of light lands at the foot of a building. These looming towers are the first time that we have seen anything emerge from the dark spaces of the prints. They seem to press in on the small figures walking below.

-Mia Dalglish