Francesco Del Conte
Achromatic Variances
Building upon one of photography's core principles—the grayscale—this exhibition presents a trio of experimental projects that delve into and reimagine key facets of the light-sensitive medium. Through a meticulous exploration of optical phenomena, Francesco Del Conte’s practice unveils the intrinsic paradoxes of photography. His work illuminates the dynamic interplay between magic and science, the tension between abstraction and reality, and the enduring conflict between objectivity and subjectivity.
Skyglow
The tension between photography's role as an objective recorder and a subjective medium has long intrigued both artists and scientists. In Skyglow, the artist examines the influence of artificial light pollution on astronomical observation, offering a novel approach to documentary photography.
The project involves photographing identical constellations from multiple locations with varying levels of light pollution. All technical parameters—lens type, film type, aperture, focus, exposure time, and atmospheric conditions—are kept constant. The only variable is the amount of artificial light recorded by the film, which directly affects the density of the photographic emulsion.
The resulting work features two pairs of gelatin silver prints, each pair depicting the same portion of the night sky. These photographs were taken in contrasting environments: the city center of Bolzano and the remote Aurina Valley in South Tyrol, Italy. The reference stars, Deneb and Vega, were chosen for their brightness and prominence in the summer night sky, making them visible even in areas with significant light pollution.
In this series, the camera functions as a purely mechanical light recorder, and the film serves as an impartial surface sensitive to light. The images abandon traditional photographic concerns—such as narrative, space, or composition—and instead act as objective records of light. Viewers are encouraged to interpret the prints in any orientation, reinforcing their status as neutral documentation rather than authored images.
By relinquishing artistic control over the images' composition and presentation, the artist foregrounds the physical phenomenon of light pollution itself, inviting viewers to reflect on how human activity alters our perception of the natural world.
Minerals
Minerals, a series of ten large-format gelatin silver prints, explores the interplay between light and matter through the depiction of minerals with diverse optical properties. The series ranges from the pure white of selenite to the translucent black of obsidian, which, though visually striking, is technically a volcanic glass rather than a mineral.
The work poses a fundamental question: how many shades of gray can photography capture? By investigating this question, the series reframes photography as an interaction between light and material surfaces, rather than an act of subjective interpretation.
Black and White Rainbows
Black and White Rainbows is a wall installation composed of sixty gelatin silver prints. The artist used five distinct black-and-white films to capture twelve segments of an artificial rainbow, created in the studio with a light beam and a diffraction grating. Rendering the vibrant hues of a rainbow in grayscale seems counterintuitive, yet this process echoes the historical essence of black-and-white photography: transforming the infinite spectrum of visible colors into shades of gray.
The installation is methodically arranged: violets and blues occupy the left, greens and yellows span the center, and oranges and reds dominate the right. Each row represents the unique chromatic response of a specific film, with the rainbow colors translated into varying shades of gray according to the spectral sensitivity of each emulsion. The darkest prints expose the films’ inability to capture certain wavelengths, revealing photography's inherent "color blindness."
This work is both abstract and analytical, dissecting the photographic process to its core components. It unveils the distinct "genetic fingerprint" of each film while probing the biases technology imposes on our representation of reality.
In the accompanying video piece, From Infrared to Ultraviolet, a digital camera mounted on a slider traverses the same rainbow used for the prints. The resulting footage transitions smoothly through the entire spectrum, from infrared to ultraviolet. By emphasizing the subjective nature of color perception, the piece demonstrates how the technical specifications of cameras and monitors significantly shape our experience of color.