Hiroshi Sugimoto: Lightning Fields
Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Lightning Fields triangulate Benjamin Franklin and Michael Faraday’s pioneering electricity research with William Fox Talbot’s discovery of calotype photography. In this body of work, Sugimoto seeks to capture and re-create these momentous innovations in the darkroom.
To create each image, Sugimoto uses a Van De Graaff 400,000-volt generator to apply an electrical charge directly onto film. The result in each case is a unique, instantaneous image of an electrical current, sometimes resembling a meteor shower, or a “treeing effect” on the film.













Hiroshi SugimotoLightning Fields 225
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Hiroshi SugimotoLightning Fields 190
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Hiroshi SugimotoLightning Fields 146
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Hiroshi SugimotoLightning Fields 216
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Hiroshi SugimotoLightning Fields 220
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Hiroshi SugimotoLightning Fields 170
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Hiroshi SugimotoLightning Fields 168
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Hiroshi SugimotoLightning Fields 187
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