During my time in seminary I developed an interest in physics. It seemed to offer an interesting playground for the more unanswerable questions on my spiritual journey. As I’ve wandered its shallows, ideas like Einstein’s theories on the interconnectedness of space and time have helped me process my faith. With these ideas swirling around my mind, as an artist, I’ve noticed how my medium of photography offers a unique perspective on these things, particularly time.
I am far from the first to wonder about photography’s relationship to time. In one of its foundational texts, The Decisive Moment (1952), Henri Cartier-Bresson considers how the timing of a photograph is the photographer’s most impactful choice. This summer I read the more recent Photography, Narrative, Time: Imaging our Forensic Imagination (2014) by Greg Battye. In it the author explores how time accordions before and after the “decisive moment” in a photograph. For example, a photograph of a person jumping includes the knowledge, for the viewer, that the person was standing before the jump and has likely landed after the jump. In this way, a photograph gives the viewer a superhuman perspective of reality, through this compression of time, that is not otherwise possible. How delightfully odd.
When viewing photographs from this superhuman perspective, time not only stands still — it expands. The installation of this show plays with these photographic curiosities around time. The artworks are installed in the round so they are in conversation with one another. The gallery floor turns into a type of space-time continuum itself, in which the works allow the viewer to travel across time and space and between them. As they do, one experiences different moments of time all happening at once.






Perhaps the most time-literal of all the photoworks belong to Nicolas Caesar Colón. His work with shutter speed in these three photographs unveils the reality of the expansion of time that photography offers, giving the viewer a clearer understanding of how photography creates its superhuman perspective. Chloe Daniels’, “Discarded Laundry Machines,” shows deterioration over time in the film's altered coloration due to its expired chemistry alongside the deteriorated domestic appliances. Stephen Childs’ works touch on two quiet moments of a family’s life and performance, as the artist himself portrays “Bud” and his real life children perform alongside him in the photographs.



Time begins to shift in the show with Li Rothrocks’ “pondweed,” as it displays time’s ongoing expansion in its slow mossy growth. Viewers next encounter Daniels’ time-swept landscape, “Rainy Countryside,” from 2023. The grid of Teresa K. Morrison’s Lith-developed lumen prints appear next. These prints, made on expired antique photo-paper, create a complex time warp of their own. “Palm Fiber,” created in 2025, is printed on expired Kodak Velox from 1956.




Viewers next encounter a blurring and abstraction between the physical world and the reality beyond in Hannah Okamoto’s, “Fog in Redondo” and Daniels’, “View from the Pier.”
As the show comes full circle, viewers see an oversized look at death with Christine Lee Smith’s, “Resurrection.” Both in title and form this photograph invites mortal contemplation. The hope of resurrection echoes in the trees’ cruciform shape as it towers over death. Amanda Barrier’s, “Please Come In” and “Home and Garden,” due to their placement, look to the other side of death as a warm interior and an invitation into a lush garden space.
One can’t help but feel a tinge of transcendence emerging from these collected works as they contemplate time’s spaciousness. Perhaps here again science winks to the divine. What if photography — an artform after Einstein’s own heart — with its expansive perspective on time, invokes a kind of spiritual invitation? How might photography invite viewers to experience the Divine, the Kingdom of God, as already here, now?
May it be so on earth as it is in heaven, now as always (Luke 17:20-21).
Viewers are invited to move intuitively through the show. For a deeper experience, I recommend listening to the song “Hide & Seek,” by Imogene Heap while viewing the show. Additionally, the questions below are designed to support a meditative reflection through what surfaces for you as you engage the work.
Art helps us explore underneath our thoughts and to swim in the deeper parts of our soul, where Jesus is already loving us. After reading the show statement, take a few moments to sit with these questions and notice where God invites you through them.
As you explore the gallery, where do you feel yourself most drawn?
How are you being invited to experience space & time through this exhibit?
How do you sense God inviting you to respond to what has surfaced as you’ve explored this space?
Feel free to share any reflections or insights you would like to in the comments below.