Pauline Woolley: CHASING SUNS 2014

I had read a few years back that the sun rises and sets in different arcs over the planet depending on two facts; our visual relation to the equator and the seasonal time of year. I wanted to visually experience this for myself and became impelled to embark on a technically challenging undertaking to evidence these facts.

Here begins Chasing Suns, a long-term photographic project spanning various locations in Europe and Asia who’s objective is to gain the truth of our closet star’s movement across the sky.

Exposures of one minute to 24 hours record not only the sun's movement, but also the atmospheric conditions of the event. Over exposed paper negatives record an extended glance of this daily occurrence, an occurrence unable to be observed by the human eye. On combining the images from differing equatorial points, a visual language, a language away from the complexity of scientific mathematical equations emerges. However, the use of multiple apertures and the over layering of images brings into question the scientific validity of the images, as the aesthetic nature of the photographs starts to emerge. The end struggle being the empirical endeavor verses the romantic notion.