1996-2000

Attracted to Light (H)

American, born 1961

Doug and Mike Starn have an abiding fascination with the metaphorical symbolism of light and the sun. For their series Attracted to Light, they created a three-foot-long macro lens to photograph the moths and other insects drawn to the lamp on the porch of Doug's house in upstate New York. This lens allowed them to capture the tiny insects in such detail that each photograph became an individual portrait. Yet the magic of each image derives not as much from the personality traits of the insect as from the surrounding moonlike aura produced by the circular lens and the feeling of fragile, dusty wings created by the use of a hand-painted emulsion on mulberry paper.