Light Bulb

Abelardo Morell employs the language of photography to produce visual surprise and wonder. To demonstrate the optical principles at work in photography to his students, Morell constructed a homemade camera from a cardboard box open at one end, a lens, and duct tape. Clumsy yet elemental, the contraption stripped the idea of a camera down to its essence. “This picture gave me the feeling that photography is in many ways still raw and unexplored,” Morell explained a few years later. “Making this picture was for me a way to rediscover the mystery of the medium and maybe to share it with others.”