Shedding light on Basil
by Michèle Nardelli
Fresh
from his win in the National Portrait Gallery photographic
competition with his work Dan on Winter Solstice Eve, UniSA art and
photography lecturer Mark Kimber was commissioned to take a special
portrait of former UniSA Chancellor and renowned research scientist
Dr Basil Hetzel for the gallery.
And as Kimber says he could not have had a kinder and more accommodating subject.
"I asked Dr Hetzel if there was a particular location here in Adelaide that had some sort of resonance for him in relation to his work on iodine deficiency and he chose the CSIRO building on Frome Road, the place where he conducted much of his research," Kimber said.
"My interests have always been centred on the night or twilight as a setting for my work so we determined to meet there one early November evening.
"I wanted to create of little piece of ‘theatre’ where I compressed time beyond the usual 60th of a photographic second, allowing other elements within the image, such as the light from the doorway and the evening sky and clouds to ‘burn’ into the picture.
"Even when we know that we are looking at a fiction, something the naked eye can’t see - what I think intrigues us in time exposure night images is our ability or even compulsion to believe in their strange, dream-like colour.
"Almost in spite of ourselves we still embrace it emotionally. The camera stretches time revealing a world impossible to know through our own consciousness - unworldly colour, glowing with light."
The portrait of Dr Hetzel was hung in the National Portrait Gallery for its opening in March.