Carte photographique de la lune, planche II.A (Photographic Chart of the Moon, plate II.A) Possibly 1908 - 1914

Charles Le Morvan made this photographic chart of the moon, sometime between 1865 and 1933. Can you imagine him in his dark room, working with light and shadow to conjure up the surface of the moon? It's a funny thing, isn't it, this impulse to map the unknown? It reminds me of some abstract painters, like Joan Mitchell, who used her brush to map the inner landscape of her emotions. Le Morvan, with his camera, maps a different kind of interior – the mysterious, cratered surface of our celestial neighbor. Look at the way the light catches the edges of those craters. The image has a tactile quality, like a charcoal drawing. In a way, it echoes the work of Vija Celmins, who painstakingly recreated photographs in graphite, slowing down our perception and inviting us to really *see*. Each tiny indentation, each subtle shift in tone, invites us to pause and consider the vastness of space and the infinite possibilities contained within it.