Temple of Nettuno, Paestum, XVI

Trained in sculpture and later in photography and related media, Vera Lutter has created large-scale pinhole photographs since the early 1990s. Her subjects are often architecture, landscape, cityscape, and communication and transportation infrastructures. With a deep interest in archaeology and classical architecture, Lutter, for the first time, photographed a Greek temple, and created Temple of Nettuno. Built in c. 460 – 450 BC, the temple is one of the best-preserved Greek architectures. Thus, Lutter identified Temple of Nettuno most suitable for a long exposure. To create a large-size unique print, she first sets up a room-sized camera obscura to capture black and white negative images. (Photographic paper is affixed to a wall inside of a camera obscura, opposite to a wall where an aperture is.) An image from outside is projected upside-down through an aperture and fixed on the photographic paper. As the work title indicates, she gave a full day exposure to create the work in a cloudless beautiful day.