Shot in the Himalayas with a self-made pinhole camera, Momo Yamanishi's "The Light / Mustang" is a visually stunning work that combines deep time, place, the photographic process, and personal and universal experience. While travelling through the Himalayas, the chance discovery of an ammonite fossil in a cracked piece of rock led Yamanishi to a vivid realisation that the mountains surrounding her were once part of a prehistoric ocean. Sensing a connection between the fossil as a form of preserved time and photography as an act of solidifying light, Yamanishi created a layered, metaphorically rich series in the northwestern part of Nepal, once home to the ancient kingdom of Mustang.

“I have spent years of my life practicing metal casting techniques. I find the idea of giving form to something like light or time, something that evades touch, both odd and fascinating. Images appear to have a strangely compelling power over us. Why else would we try to preserve them in physical form? When I think of the time it took to form a fossil, or the simplicity of the pinhole effect that can turn even a dark cave into a camera obscura, photography loses its meaning as a modern human invention and instead becomes something that light has been offering us for eons.” ― from Momo Yamanishi’s afterword

first edition