Linda Connor: Earth and Sky

Bridging the terrestrial and the celestial, Earth and Sky includes images from Connor’s ongoing series Once the Ocean Floor, which depicts the intricately jagged cliff faces in Nepal and the mountainous Ladakh region in Northern India — carved over millennia by the power of nature, as well as iconic images of the cosmos. 

In 1995, Connor began printing with the historic glass plate negatives in the archives of California’s Lick Observatory, located at Mt. Hamilton just east of San Jose. Numbering in the thousands, the Lick Observatory has one of the most extensive collections of glass plate negatives, most of which have not been used to make prints since their original production in the late 19th century. In both cases, time — the latent subject of every photograph — moves both backward and forward, as we traverse its geological and astronomical aspects in order to locate ourselves within a universe defined solely by flux. 

In Connor's hands, the camera is not an instrument of precise control; instead, she leaves her process open to unknown possibilities. She usually makes unmetered exposures and has a proclivity for photographing in uncontrollable situations. What results are contemplative, quietly powerful images invoke a sense of timelessness and invite us to contemplate our place in the world, and emphasize the ethereal, diffused light so signature to her imagery.