Chris McCaw tests the scientific limits of photography while exploring the concepts of time, exposure, and solar power with his body of work from the Sunburn series. For Sunburned GSP#874 (Mojave), 2015, McCaw used a self-built 20 x 24” camera with a military grade camera lens to capture the light of the sun as it burned directly into the media held in the film plane. In this work, the artist uses vintage fiber based photographic paper instead of film. The process is the same as burning a leaf with a magnifying glass, but here, the camera lens acts as the magnifying glass. McCaw’s photographs are made with long exposures and the captured image shows an arc over the horizon, the physical path of the sun made from the earth’s rotation. After an exposure lasting several hours, the sun’s path or burn pattern is literally scorched into the vintage paper (often emitting smoke) to create a one of a kind photographic print.
This object is not on display at the National Air and Space Museum. It is either on loan or in storage.