my glass i: Black Sun in the Window

[Brian Moore]

Sometimes my glass i is plastic, as it was for this photo.

This is The Ocean Center Building in downtown Long Beach, California. It was built in 1927 or maybe it was '29. I snapped this shot from my car window whilst stopped at a traffic light about 8am one morning. I had little flexibility with the composition, but I liked how the sun that morning reflected so brilliantly off the eastern facade of the building, so I decided to snap a shot anyway.

I used my Polaroid 210 Land Camera and Fuji FP100c film.

The softness of the image is partially due to the lens in that particular camera, which tends to yield soft images even when they are focused. However, it is possible in this case my focus was a bit off also.

I didn't at first know what the black spot was. At first I'm thinking there was a defect in the film. Later I learned that its a photographic phenomenon that sometimes occurs in shots taken into bright sunlight. Of course, for this shot the sun was behind me, so I'm quite delighted--lucky I think--that I got the Black Sun reflected off the window.

Blog:
http://myglass-i.blogspot.com/

Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/56486443@N08/

 

[Paul Lange]

Very intriguing and the description just adds to the interest. Really nice.

 

[Brian Moore]

Thanks a lot, Paul. I saw an explanation once of the black sun phenomena but I cannot locate it right now. I'm going to have to find it. Actually I'd like to repeat the black sun on other images. Anyway, thanks again.

 

[Paul Lange]

A wild guess...... Is it something to do with the light being polarised? A similar effect to when you look at a LCD computer screen through a polariser.

 

[Pete Askew]

It is almost certainly a solarisation effect. Normally you'd expect to need a longer exposure to create complete inversion in a negative material but with instant films it seems this can be induced with much shorter exposures. I think the article you are remembering is the Black Sun effect described by Adams in The Negative.

http://www.harlanerskine.com/blog/2008/04/the-black-sun-by-ansel-adams-and-minor-white.html

 

[Brian Moore]

Yes, Pete, I think that was the article. Thanks for posting the link!