Lewis Andrews
Extremity
Definition
- The furthest point or limit of something.
From the Oxford Dictionary.
The extremity series of photographs investigate the atmosphere as the uppermost limit for 99% of life here on earth. Science tells us this is the furthest point that most life can go here on earth before entering the vacuum of space beyond and certain death. Only the layers of gas surrounding our planet and life as we know it separates us from the infinite. The condensed water vapor we see as clouds marking a waypoint between the two.
However, the light coming from our sun is responsible for creating and sustaining life here on earth. Light in the form of photons originates from our sun where life can certainly not exist. Those same photons then need to travel through the vacuum which would be fatal for you and me. When they reach our planet, they cross over this waypoint from death and create and sustain processes valuable to life here on our planet like photosynthesis.
Kind of ironic then that in order for us to even live and be able to simply see, light must come from regions of almost certain death and cross the atmosphere, acting as a barrier between the two.
