Shapes and Shadows

[cricket chirps and sound of a car turning on, dogs barking and car tires screech]
[scary music]
Jessie: Hmm.
Jordan: Late night?
Jessie: Oh, sorry. Kind of. Yeah, I, I saw this really creepy face in my room last night, and I know it's not a real monster, but I couldn't figure out what it was.
Jordan: Oh, that sounds scary. I wonder if we can do some research about it?
Jessie: Oh, maybe. I think it happened when a car was passing by my room because I could see the light from the window.
Jordan: I think I heard someone talking about this cool photographer who used to work with light. Want to see what we can find?
Jessie: Sure. I'll try anything.
[upbeat music]
Jordan: All right, the curator said they should be in this room. Yeah, I think these must be it. Let's see, Henry Holmes Smith, these are it.
Jessie: Wow. These are great, but they're photographs?
Jordan: They are, let me check what this book said about how Smith created them. It says here to create these three works, Smith poured Karo corn syrup and water onto sheets of plexiglass.
[uplifting music]
After pouring the mixture onto the support, Smith beamed a spotlight through the plexiglass onto light sensitive paper, the resulting image is produced by the refraction of light through the liquid onto the glass, which has generated an exposure on the paper. So he wasn't taking photographs, he was pouring liquids to make photos?
Jessie: Yeah. That seems really complicated. But it makes sense if you think about the word “photograph”. “Photo” just means “light” and “graph” means “drawing”. So photograph would just be “light drawing”. Oh, it's like a photograph without a camera.
Jordan: Yeah! These are really cool.
Jessie: Yeah. I like this one. It's called… it's called “Cats dancing”.
Jordan: Oh, that's so cute. It's like they're holding hands.
Jessie: Oh yeah. I like these. Uh, it's called “Meeting”.
Jordan: They do look like two figures meeting.
Jessie: I really like these guys too.
Jordan: There's some more over there. Should we go check it out?
Jessie: Oh, sure.
Jordan: Okay, these look familiar. I think the book mentions them.
Jessie: Hmm. I don't really know what I'm looking at.
Jordan: These are called “Circles of Light”. They're a light study of circles and shadows cast by wire grids.
Jessie: Oh, so these are just shadows?
Jordan: Yeah! If you see right here, you can see these four circles are from this one beam of light.
Jessie: Oh, okay. So it's like a spotlight shining through the grids, creating those shadows on the wall.
Jordan: Yeah. And if you move the objects around, it would make different shadows.
Jessie: Oh, so you can make different shadows using both light and objects.
[ding sound]
Jordan, thank you so much!
Jordan: You're welcome.
Jessie: Oh, I have an experiment to set up. I'll see you soon.
Jordan: Okay.
Jessie: See you Monday.
Jordan: Bye.
[gentle music]
Jessie: Let's see.
[click of flashlight]
You were just a bunch of shadows, that's all. But I think you can be a friendly face now.