P2 - Carlotta Corpron, Untitled Light Study (a)

Carlotta Corpron
American, 1901-1988

Untitled Light Study (a)
1947
Gelatin silver print
Gift of the Kathryn C. Wanlass Foundation
2012.5

---

Negative Capability
by Shanan Ballam

A study of light is a study of darkness,
the emptiness that surrounds us, gives shape
to our lives. Our bright skulls harness
the dark matter of our brains: ribs and blades

of light, pages and fins. A broken wishbone,
gills, a cardinal shadowed by the smooth
snow of an evergreen—or is it the slow
shark, its fin rising through liquid light, toothed

darkness? I’m taken by the light waves
as I was taken by the river’s ragged
water sweeping me through a white maze
of boulders, dropping me in a placid

pool, a haze of stasis, like twilight,
where all is possible: both darkness and light.