Deiseal’ is a commissioned piece for the An Lanntair Creative Places ‘Bealach’ project.
Jon Macleod’s project expands on the meaning of ‘Bealach’ as a pass to the notion of passage and passing. In particular the passage of the sun expressed in the Gaelic word ‘Deiseal’ – from it’s root meaning of ‘sunwise’,
Images were taken by 50 Solargraph cameras set up in locations across the Outer Hebrides, urban and rural, activated to start recording on the shortest day – December 21st. and finishing on the longest day – June 21st. A kind of slow CCTV designed to capture the particular extremes of light and dark in the islands across the year.
A solargraph is a long-exposure image that photographically records the path of the sun (and the view seen from the camera) as it arcs across the sky, usually over several months. It performs like a kind of slow CCTV. Solargraph ‘cameras’ are easy to make simply requiring a piece of photographic paper and a re-cycled container to make the camera. It works much like a simple pin hole camera. They are generally small and can be attached using cable ties or duct tape to fences, lamp posts, trees, buildings etc. No developing or dark room is needed to see the finished image. The negative that has been exposed in the pin hole camera is simply scanned and the image reversed in Adobe Photoshop. It can then be printed to any size