| Sumario: | This article deals with the laser photography technique used by photographer King Dexter. King Dexter, before he began making the laser photograph images, spent two decades making semi-abstract studies of nature inspired by Ansel Adams' classic landscapes, and worked with Adams for several years. Dexter's switch from hoofing it through the High Sierra photographing junipers, clouds, granite and rushing water, to working with lasers in a small, dark room for months at a time, was something he had not planned or anticipated. A student of his, who also happened to be a physicist, simply offered him a laser to experiment with. Assured that the laser was not dangerous and was small enough to carry under his arm, he accepted. Dexter spent several months seeing what the laser would do when beamed onto and through all kinds of objects, from perfect crystals to bits of broken and melted glass. The technique he worked out involves interrupting the beam with something that refracts it into abstract patterns, which Dexter then records on eight-by-ten-inch transparency film or other photosensitive material. In this work, Dexter found the laser a source of visual expression comparable to his jaunts in the Sierra, but he admits to missing the fresh air and exhilaration that comes with sunlight.
|
|---|