Chapter 7

Time, Space, Imagination, and the Camera

IN SEARCH OF TIME

We all know what time is until someone asks us to explain it; then, even physicists find the nature of time to be inexplicable. Time is more baffling than space. It seems to flow past us or we appear to move through it, making its passage seem subjective and incomprehensible. Yet a camera can purposely stop time and spatially add the aspect of physical dimension within a framed area of visual space, giving photographs exceptional properties that other visual media do not possess.

In his Theory of Relativity (1905), Albert Einstein proved that widely held concepts about time were not always true. For instance, Sir Isaac Newton’s theory that time moves at a constant rate was ...

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