In 1978 Professor James Wolfe and his students at the University of Illinois heated one face of a silicon crystal and measured the temperature across the opposite face. The resulting thermal map is the utterly surprising - and beautiful - picture to the left. Perhaps this picture reminds you of the patterns formed on a tabletop after light passes through a glass of water. And for good reason; the same natural laws govern heat waves as light waves. But the mystery is: these laws create beauty.

These patters are caustics, a surface to which each light (or heat) ray is tangent. It defines a boundary of an envelope of rays and is revealed as a curve of concentrated light. The most famous example of a caustic is the rainbow.

These universal laws inspired me to create photographs that combine a formal portrait of an object with its "alter ego": the pattern formed by light passing through the object. The image of the object by reflected light and the caustic pattern of transmitted light are two equivalent representation of the object.

Fundamental laws creating beauty, multiple ways of representing reality, for me these generate a sense of awe.

“What can one say about the role of light? It reminds me of a line by a poet ‘How can you tell between the dancer and the dance’."
--Abelardo Morrell