流明 Lumen

published in the 190 issue of Life Magazine

「流动的光景

明暗之间

flowing luminoscape

in between light and shade

时

日 光 之手细细拓写深浅

显

影 」

* 'lumen' refers to 'lumen print', an image created by exposing objects on photosensitive paper in the sun.

'lumen' is also a unit of luminous flux, a measure of the total quality of visible light emitted by a source per unit of time.

This is the fourth poem I worked on in the project, from which I learned about 'lumen print' and fell in love with it. I love it's in fact a solar photogram without a camera, a pure interaction of light and object as the photographer 胡小隆 said '就像落日沉入人们的想象 as if the sun sets into imagination'.

These three images are lumen prints of dead plants and veggie supplies during lockdown. These photos are subtle traces and representations of the conceptual intertwine of light and time, as I deliberately place 光(light) in the middle and have 日(sun) coming vertically while 时(hour) horizontally - there's 日光(sun-light) and there's 时光 (translit. hour-light ＝time). In Chinese, I don't think by words, but in characters.