Beneath the surface of perceptual clarity lies the shadow realm—an underworld not of chaos, but of intricate design. Within this space, forms interlock with brooding precision, their relationships defined not by illumination, but by absence. Patterns emerge, suspended in subdued tonalities, veiled beneath a thin shroud of murky light and shifting greys.

We often assume that photographs show us what is there—that they are, in some fundamental sense, about recognition: the world made legible through light and lens. But in the case of Conceptual Photography, and particularly in the present work, this assumption is quietly dismantled.

What we see in Mapping of the Unconscious Mind is not photography in a documentary sense. It is photography as a conceptual medium—one that does not show us what the world looks like, but instead questions what it means to see—and more profoundly, what it means to perceive meaning at all.

In this expanding photographic series, the shadow becomes more than an optical phenomenon; it serves as a visual metaphor for the unconscious mind. Both the photographic shadow and the unconscious resist direct scrutiny. They are not seen in full consciousness but perceived indirectly through suggestion, distortion, and ambiguity.

Here, a single image is reversed, joined to itself, and the halves form a symmetrical whole. The technique, echoing the Rorschach test in method (if not in mood), conjures something more architectural than accidental. What appears in the center is often startling: a figure, totemic or spectral, emerging not by design but by accident—a fertile accident.

This is where its philosophical depth lies. The photograph is no longer the endpoint of visual inquiry, but its beginning.

The unconscious is structured, but its logic is unfamiliar. Dreams, slips of language, and fragments of memory weave together in an intricate design, just as shadows assemble their visual grammar on surfaces. The world of shadows mirrors this: its forms may appear random at first glance, yet they are precise reflections of a hidden order dictated by light, angle, and obstruction.

Moreover, shadows resist permanence. They are mutable, slipping away as the light shifts, much like unconscious thoughts retreat when brought to awareness. The act of photographing them becomes a paradoxical attempt to fix the unfixed, to hold the fleeting in stillness, just as psychoanalysis seeks to pin down what lurks in the psyche momentarily.

There is also a tension between visibility and concealment. The shadow is revealed by hiding; it gives shape by withholding light. Likewise, the unconscious shapes our perceptions and behaviours through forces we cannot fully see. To gaze upon a shadow is to acknowledge that there is always something beyond the reach of the eye, something implied rather than stated.

Ultimately, this series does not seek answers. It lingers in shadow, where clarity dissolves and fragments whisper of something just beyond reach. These images dwell in spaces where the unconscious resists interpretation, revealing itself instead in flickers and fragments, like faces drifting through smoke.

The experiential images are all revealed within the editing format; only the chaotic straight lines have been added to the composition in support of the idea of mapping.