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.

Black and white photograph of lighting striking
Black and white photograph of lighting striking
Black and white photograph of lighting striking
Black and white photograph of lighting striking
Black-and-white photograph of a white trail of light in the top left corner with smaller branches coming off of it on a black background
Black and white photograph of lighting striking
Black and white photograph of lighting striking
Black and white photograph of lighting striking against black background
Black and white photograph of lighting striking
Black and white photograph of lighting striking against black background
Black and white photograph of lighting striking against black background
Black and white photograph of lighting striking against black background
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Black and white photograph of the horizon with equal parts sky and sea

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