Traveling Lights

(Hardback)

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Traveling Lights is the second volume in a series of five books by the photographer Xavier Guardans. Traveling Lights is also an ongoing photographic series with over 200 works in total, all an investigation of minimalism and light in diverse environments. The series began in Egypt in and it was developed over ten years in nearly a dozen countries including Kenya, Belize, China, Senegal, Vietnam, Spain, Argentina and the United States among others. Guardans, who lives and works in Brooklyn, lived in Japan for two years in the late 1980's, and this experience was a turning point for the photographer. It helped him to "turn down the volume" of his past environments and hone his sensitivity to finding the beauty in simplicity. Since that time, Guardans always took his Rolleiflex and colour film with him, ready to respond to his ever changing landscapes. Naturally, light became the constant motif in his travels. He notes that "Photography is painting with light. Everything else comes after that. It's the light that dominates the whole story". Using light, the fourty full-colour images selected for Traveling Lights weave a poetic visual narrative between seemingly disparate environments; stoney mineral deposits found in the glaciers of Patagonia parallel with dried brush found in Minnesota or Kenya creating complex textures and connections.

Reviews

Obsessed with nature and light, Guardans has traveled the world to seek out the most mesmerising and exceptional natural phenomena. The different lighting in his photographs creates a surreal but revelatory atmosphere, while sometimes subtly emphasizing the human touch in nature. In this way, Guardans' own artistic style charmingly mingles with the exposure of and our connection to natural beauty.--Hanne Pennick "Another Magazine"