Opening Reception, Michael Benson's "Images from Beyond"

Long View Gallery

Submitted by Andrea on October 13, 2009 - 5:55pm

Venue Address: 

1234 Ninth St. NW.

Washington, DC 20005

United States

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www.longviewgallery.com

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Beginning in 1995, Michael Benson began hunting through hundreds of thousands of solar system photographs, dating as far back as the late 1960’s, to find raw or partially processed images with potential significance in the photographic landscape. As locator, editor and curator of these images, which were originally taken by interplanetary probes traveling through s ...pace, Benson devoted substantial time to the creation of composite mosaics and the optimization of this body of work for print production. Benson describes himself as “the author, in many cases, of the final composite images. Most of the resulting images wouldn't exist in anything like the form seen without substantial work.”

Benson frequently seeks color data from various filters to create amalgams based on actual information from the source spacecraft. His attention to detail and belief in the realistic presentation of celestial bodies results in a more accurate view of the Beyond than the illustrated examples we have grown up with in textbooks and on television.

While Benson’s images strike you first with their arresting beauty, a certain uneasiness can follow due to the realization that our preconceptions concerning what these planets and moons look like are frequently so far from reality. Despite having seen images of Mars, for example, since elementary school, many people find that Benson’s processed photographs of this and other planets reveal wholly foreign landscapes. The result can be a sense of revelation.

The aesthetic beauty of Benson’s photographs is undeniable, but he hopes there are larger lessons to be learned. He writes, “Venus is the victim of a runaway greenhouse effect…with heat on its surface hot enough to melt lead. Mars, by contrast, lost much of its atmosphere and is a frigid desert.” As John Schwartz of The New York Times says, “as visual metaphors for environmental extremes, Mr. Benson’s images nonetheless have a way of taking hold in the mind.”