Between Shadows and Light: The Shape of the Unseen
Fine Art, Fine Art Photography, Black and White Photography, Monochrome, Portraits, Portraiture
In the void between light and shadow, identity dissolves and reforms, like breath drawn through a veil. Here, the human form is not fixed—it is sculpted by contrast, stretched across dimensions, suspended between what is seen and what is sensed. Each image in this series bends the notion of selfhood, distilling its essence to something raw and elemental, an echo of existence rather than a statement of it.
These portraits of Shreya embrace reduction and abstraction. Texture fades into smooth expanses of monochrome, where faces emerge like half-remembered dreams—distorted, obscured, yet undeniably present. Light does not simply illuminate; it carves, slicing through negative space to define the body as much by its absence as by its presence. Shadows become portals, thresholds where the familiar gives way to something liminal, something infinite.
In these moments of deliberate distortion, the subject is no longer bound to a singular truth. Identity is fluid, existing not in the features of a face but in the quiet tension of a gesture, the arc of a neck, the sharp meeting of light on skin. The surreal elements are not embellishments; they are revelations. They remind us that perception itself is malleable, that who we believe ourselves to be is only ever a construction of light, shadow, and memory.
This essay does not seek to offer answers but to provoke questions. How much of what we see is real? Where does the self end and the infinite begin? And if our essence is always shifting, always caught between dimensions, then perhaps the only truth is this: we are never just one thing, never just one moment, but an ever-changing landscape of being—shaped by the unseen, sculpted by perception itself.
:: Rand
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All images are copyright Rand Leeb-du Toit, 2025