Text and photos by Richard Dvořák (photo)
Photography does not merely record a scene; it translates light into relationships between brightness and darkness, illumination and form, movement and time. It also creates a relationship between the subject, the photographer, and the viewer. The creative impulse behind these photographs was to alter these relationships deliberately. I wanted to create images that originate entirely in visible reality but are not immediately recognizable as part of the world as we normally perceive it.
This transformation can occur while taking the photograph—through direct sunlight, intentional overexposure, a long handheld exposure, or movement—or later through adjustments to luminance, contrast, color, and texture. The original subjects remain present, but the usual relationships between their visual elements are changed. Recognition is delayed, encouraging the viewer to experience the image before fully identifying its subject.
We do not respond to an image through recognition alone. Even when its objects remain unclear, the light may still convey warmth, the sensation of standing in the low winter sun, or the feeling of being surrounded by its glow. Each photograph therefore represents an encounter between a real landscape, my experience of it as the photographer, and the viewer’s own perception.
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Image 1 — Shifting the Spectrum
This photograph was taken in the late winter evening, when only traces of warm light remained on the trees and the ground. During processing, I changed the luminance and tonal relationships within the red and orange areas. I strongly emphasized the warm orange light, shifted some of its brighter tones toward white, and intensified the reds against the deep blue of the approaching night.
The processing does not add elements that were absent from the scene. Instead, it alters the relationships among the colors and tonal values already recorded by the camera. The winter orchard remains recognizable, but its light no longer behaves quite as expected. The pale branches, reddish ground, and deep blue surroundings still belong to the original landscape, yet their changed relationships give it an eerie, almost otherworldly quality.
This is the first step away from immediate recognition. The viewer can identify the subject, but the familiar landscape no longer corresponds entirely to everyday visual experience. An ordinary place seems to reveal a different aspect of itself without ceasing to be real.
Image 2 — Immersed in Light
For the second photograph, I pointed the camera directly toward the low sun shining between two trees. I deliberately allowed parts of the image to become overexposed. During processing, I adjusted the tonal range so that structures within the darker areas became visible again.
The principal tools used here were Whites, Clarity, and Texture. Raising the Whites expands the brightest areas and allows the sunlight to spread through the network of branches. Clarity increases contrast primarily in the midtones, separating adjacent forms without simply making the entire image darker or brighter. Texture emphasizes finer surface details and helps the smaller branches and bark retain their presence within the intense light.
These adjustments change the relationship between illumination and form. The sunlight appears almost overwhelming and threatens to dissolve the trees, while the recovered details allow their darker structures to emerge again. Light and form remain in tension: neither completely obscures the other.
Before the individual branches are fully recognized, the image can evoke the physical sensation of standing in the low winter sun, surrounded by its glow and feeling its warmth on the skin. The intention behind the overexposure was therefore not simply to produce an unusual visual effect, but to translate the experience of being immersed in light into a photograph.
Image 3 — Light Within
The third photograph was made under almost identical conditions, again looking directly into the sun through the trees. Here, however, I increased the Whites less strongly and preserved much more of the dark tonal range. Texture and Clarity still reveal the dense system of branches, but the sunlight remains more concentrated around its source.
Compared with the previous image, the relationship between brightness and darkness has changed. The sun no longer floods the entire scene but appears as a small, intense point held within a complex structure. The branches form a dark, organic web around it and seem almost to contain the light.
What was expansive in the previous photograph has become concentrated and inward-looking. The sensation of warmth remains, but instead of spreading across the entire image, it is gathered within the branches. The trees no longer appear simply as objects illuminated by the sun. They become a structure that surrounds, shapes, and seems to hold the light within itself.
Image 4 — Traces Around a Divided Sun
The final photograph was taken in winter as the sun was setting behind a group of trees. The original photograph included more of the trees and the surrounding landscape, but I cropped it closely to isolate its most interesting detail: a dark branch crossing the center of the image and dividing the bright disk of the sun. This makes the single sun appear almost like two separate suns.
The exposure was close to one second, and I held the camera without a tripod or any other support. During the exposure, a light gust of wind moved the extremely fine branches, while a slight movement of my hands shifted the camera as well. The contours of the branches were therefore recorded in several overlapping positions. They appear to multiply, partially merge, and become intertwined with the surrounding light.
This combination of movement and time changes the relationship between the objects in the landscape. The fine branches lose their familiar appearance and begin to resemble dense rows of grass or another form of vegetation. Their structures and the light seem to melt together, transforming a small detail of the winter landscape into an almost abstract pattern around the divided golden sun.
At first, the subject is difficult to identify. The image may resemble a reflection, a vibrating field, or an abstract arrangement of light. Only gradually do the fine branches and the setting sun become recognizable. Everything within the photograph originated in the actual landscape, but the close crop, the long exposure, the wind, and the movement of the handheld camera changed the visual relationships among its elements.
The camera recorded not only the scene, but also a brief passage of time. A familiar landscape was transformed through the combined movement of the subject and the photographer. The result remains a photograph of reality, but it presents that reality at the edge of recognition—altered by light, time, movement, and perception.
