Trace of the Vanishing

This project explores light as a transient presence. Using long exposure, I trace the energy of fireworks, where control and chance coexist. The images move between formation and dissolution, suggesting light as unstable and passing.

“Trace of the Vanishing” examines light as a transient phenomenon that oscillates between presence and disappearance. Rather than capturing fireworks as spectacles, I focus on their transformation into abstract traces, where each line records both a physical movement and a temporal passage.

The images are created through long exposure combined with intentional camera movement, a process I consider a form of “camera drawing.” Within this process, control and unpredictability coexist: while I construct a conceptual framework in advance, the explosive behavior of gunpowder introduces elements that cannot be fully anticipated. This tension allows the images to emerge as something beyond deliberate composition.

Fireworks, historically rooted in both celebration and weaponry, embody a duality of creation and destruction. However, this work does not attempt to depict these themes directly. Instead, it isolates the brief emission of light itself, treating it as a material that appears, transforms, and vanishes within a fraction of time.

Across the series, the images move from minimal structures to complex formations, then gradually collapse into dispersion and absence. This progression is not meant to narrate a fixed story, but to create an experiential flow in which viewers may sense the instability of form and the fragility of perception.

Ultimately, this work asks how light can exist beyond its immediate visibility—whether it can be perceived as a trace of something that has already disappeared, or as a memory that is still in the process of forming.