Math is Beautiful

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Originally uploaded by dennyt.

Over the year of photos being contributed by the public to the Camer Toss Photo Pool there have been many that speak to the underlying mathematics (or physics more specifically) of the technique.

A few photographers, such as dennyt, in performing digital manipulations, such as color inversion, have hit upon a wonderful combination of effects that, in my opinion, really speaks to the math of camera tossing.

The image posted here reminds me of graph paper, or blue-line reproductions of scientific drawings... only with a twist. Folded onto itself... graph paper as imagined in four dimensions perhaps. And in essence, this is partially true.... for time is an important dimension of any camera toss photograph... any long exposure photograph for that matter.

Time is not a new subject to photography, and the earliest photographs were always long exposure due to the limitations of the medium, but photography has always found a way to look at time in new ways. A camera tossed photograph usually captures a very short interval of time, but just because something is small and seemingly ordinary, does not exclude it from being incredibly complex... and... well... simply beautiful.