Anna Thorne — ART & PHOTOGRAPHY

The following is an excerpt from Thorne’s Master’s Thesis, Luminous Visions: Expanding Awareness through the Undisclosed Lenticular Photograph, 2021.

My decision to focus on natural light as my primary subject matter arose from a particular experience I had several years ago commonly referred to as a Near Death Experience. In this experience I lost awareness of my body, sense of identity and external surroundings. Time, meaning, thought and emotion all ceased. Surrounded by complete darkness, the only observable object was a single bright light. This light of absolute clarity consumed my awareness and crystallized my life's mission to imbue a meditative state of presence into daily life.

Presence is something we each experience and develop in different ways. Less dependent on a specific activity, presence is a state of full involvement with the moment; for the cook it is cooking, for the dancer it is dancing, for the reader it is reading. Presence is about becoming more mindful of the moment. While my work is about practicing presence through visual perception, we are by no means restricted to this singular activity. We can develop presence through an endless array of daily activities.

I discovered natural light to be the perfect subject matter for promoting presence through photography as light is one of the most ordinary yet elusive visuals. Working with natural light in my own interior space gave me room to discover the nuances of passing light I had not noticed before. The process of photographing helps me slow down and tune into the present moment, permitting me to re-see the world without the interference of thought to cloud my perception. Natural light is in a constant state of change, ever available as a visual aid to slow down our minds. While my work is also self aware of its historical implications in evolving the nature of the photographic object, my most sincere hope is for my work to bring us more fully into a present state of being.