Untitled [Eye no. 1]

A painter by training, Susan Derges adopted photography as her main medium while living and studying in Japan. She has an abiding interest in the behavior of water, which features in much of her art. By carefully lighting and timing her exposures, Derges creates arresting images that can be seen as a merging of both art and science. This photograph forms part of the series The Observer and Observed, in which Derges photographed her own face behind a vibrating jet of water. By using strobe lighting, she was able to record individual droplets, each of which becomes a miniature lens that provides a distorted view of the blurred image of her eye in the background.