The Hidden Light
Theory Painting
About this work
Ordinary light travels as a flat wave. The electric and magnetic fields rise and fall in step, at right angles to each other and to the direction of travel, and the whole front of the wave arrives at once. But a wave can also be given a twist, so that its front turns like a screw as it moves forward. Twist it hard enough and the energy is pushed off the axis altogether, leaving a dark line straight down the centre of the beam. The light is there. It simply carries nothing at the point you are looking directly at.
Three forms of light and their probability waves. Ordinary light travels in flat wavefronts and lands where you look. Twisting light spirals around its own dark core, carrying energy that never arrives at the centre of your gaze. Light that is there, and cannot be seen head on.