Bullet Through Plexiglas Possibly 1962 - 1981

Harold Edgerton made this silver gelatin print of a bullet piercing plexiglas, capturing a moment of impact and destruction. The stark black and white palette emphasizes the dramatic event unfolding before us. It's a record of something usually invisible, a split-second process frozen in time. The photograph is all about materiality – the bullet, the shattered plexiglas, the photographic paper itself. Look at the way the fragments explode outwards, a burst of energy captured in mid-air. It’s like a frozen dance of destruction, a beautiful mess. The bullet is a dark, solid mass, contrasting with the delicate, spiderweb-like cracks in the plexiglas. The vertical black bar adds a sense of stability, almost as if the artist has made a minimalist composition with it. This photograph reminds me a little of some of the work of Berenice Abbott. Both of them were interested in the ways that science and art could inform each other, embracing the ambiguity of their subjects over fixed meanings.