Dark Exposure

Christina Conroy

Christina Conroy is a professor of philosophy by trade and a photographer by passion. She was born and raised in Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky. She graduated from the City University of New York, Hunter College with her BA in Philosophy and went on to earn a PhD in Philosophy from the University of California, Irvine’s Logic and Philosophy of Science Department. Photography has always been a part of Christina’s life, from her father taking long exposures during thunderstorms to her using a telescope to photograph a solar eclipse in high school. She spent a year as Kentucky Wesleyan College’s newspaper photographer and rarely left the darkroom. Since then Christina has largely moved to digital photography which has given her the freedom to more freely experiment with concepts and techniques such as long exposure images. This is her first exhibition of this size.

​

This exhibition features long exposure photographs, all of which were captured in-camera in one exposure. Some were meticulously planned and choreographed, others were the product of a process that has uncertainty inherent in its nature. Some were done in pitch blackness, others in that magical hour after sunset known as the “blue hour”. None of the images are composites of multiple images. For each I opened the shutter once, and when it was closed, I had my image.
These images capture something that is ephemeral and abstract, yet something we take for granted due to its almost universal presence – light. However, these images use light to not just illuminate and document what is already present, but to create something new and sometimes unexpected.
Embracing the unexpected in photography is something I learned to love while shyly taking street photographs in New York City. While planning and patience are essential to consistently getting great photographs, I still find joy in suddenly being in the right place at the right time, or snapping the shutter and finding that what was actually captured was even more interesting than what I was aiming for. When making these images I often have that same feeling. 

​