There’s a curious phenomenon that occurs on the West Texas plains. Because of the flatness of the landscape, the last light of the morning and the evening can travel near perpendicularly to the earth. Shadows approach infinity.
In the fall of 2015, I began studying the characteristics of this effect. Initially, I documented the behavior of the morning and evening light through photographs. Next, I diagrammed these photographs by using different color fills to represent atmosphere and direct light. And lastly, I mapped the locations of each of these photographs, superimposing the solar information over a plan of the photograph.
I was drawn to the Broadway Avenue tunnel on the east side of Lubbock because it was was one of the few conditions in the city where light could travel beneath the horizon plane. From this location I could also document a condition where the underside of a surface was illuminated by the early morning sun.
A similar underpass condition to the previous example. Non-horizontal surfaces had varying temporal qualities compared to the light rays that passed over the flat landscape.
I wanted to document at least one interior condition and also one condition in the waning evening light. This parking garage was clad in vertical louvers that when diagrammed revealed poly-rhythms of direct and atmospheric light.
