Instant Photography

Instant cameras, commonly referred to as ‘Polaroids’ thanks to the pioneering company, offer limited manual-automatic controls. These self-developing photographs present numerous analog imperfections, but additional aspects make them distinctive.

Polaroids do not document the world faithfully. They create a new version of it through their own lighting schemes, colours, and softness; a quality associated with past technologies. All these aspects enhance the transient nature of subjects, such as boy counting in during a game of hide-and-seek (see picture).

The process of capturing an image can also draw from ‘missed opportunities’. These are subjects one comes across but does not photograph due to not having a camera at hand, or for fear of intrusion. A line of people coming down a hill, or visitors waiting like purgatorial souls outside a derelict hospital—such images are captured in the mind and their essence might be transferred into other shots.

 

 

Having the image in hand within minutes does not necessarily make the medium of instant photography unique, for even the photos themselves can change hues and mood with time. What does make it unique is its unpredictability and the challenge it poses when it comes to materialising intentions within the limitations of the medium. This makes the effort worth pursuing.

An image illustrates the relationship between a subject and its viewer. It is a perspective on the world, be it a printed photograph, a digital file, or a memory.  

Find out more about Instants, published by Ede Books, here: http://bit.ly/2yCQLyV
Article and photographs by Charlo Pisani

The limits of noise

Of the astronomical phenomena, we can witness with our own eyes, a solar eclipse is one of the most spectacular. This phenomenon was used early in the 20th century to prove Einstein’s new theory of gravity. As light passes around a celestial object, its path is bent exactly as predicted by Einstein’s theory.

When researchers compared the amount light that was bent by large clusters of galaxies with the observed mass of the galaxies, they found that there was a discrepancy of over a factor of 1000, giving birth to the phenomenon known today as dark matter.

Deandra Cutajar

The distortions of galaxy shapes by large masses, provide astronomers with a tool to construct a dark matter map and its distribution in the universe we observe. Images captured using telescopes are analysed carefully to understand the distortions of galaxies due to the presence of dark matter lenses. However, in practice this is a very arduous task because telescopes suffer both from electronic noise as well as atmospheric distortions, so throughout my PhD, I investigated how the noise present in astronomical images could contribute to the distortion of galaxy images and also introduce errors in our maps of dark.

Under the supervision of Prof Kristian Zarb Adami, I applied Bayesian inference to determine the correct measurements of galaxy shapes. However, since the variations in the shape and size of galaxies due to lensing is very small, the measurement of dark matter is extremely difficult. Only novel statistical methods developed within a consistent Bayesian framework allow us to extract the maximum amount of information in such difficult scenarios.

Unfortunately, the application of the new methods in my Ph.D. have shown results that are similar to those reported by other researchers, with the techniques failing to provide the desired accuracy. Nonetheless research goes on, unravelling more mysteries and questions that still need answers.

 

Float

FLOAT was an interactive exhibition that explored light. The exhibition was launched as a one-off event of lit installations spread over the floors of the Faculty for the Built Environment (University of Malta) on the evening of 3 July 2015. The exhibition had aerial walkways, floating rooms, colour bursts, and cityscapes captured in panes of glass.

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Make light talk to light

Dr André Xuereb

Technology has made the world a very small place. Using light has transformed communication systems and a web of optical fibres span beneath our streets. This technology is no panacea since light cannot talk to another light beam: currently, ‘translators’ are needed. We want to push forward research into technologies that remove this requirement, addressing both commercial considerations and the underlying mechanisms. Our research is using exotic effects of quantum mechanics to help cut out the middleman and make light talk to light. This would increase speed, make security unbreakable, and improve energy efficiency. Malta’s communication technology would be revolutionised.