TC Today - Teachers College Columbia University

Hold That Smile—All Day
Artist and doctoral student Jun Gao uses long-term exposure photography
to capture unseen qualities of stillness and light
When the artist Jun Gao decided to photograph
Columbia University’s Low Plaza
recently, he arrived before sunrise. By the
time he had set up three homemade cameras—two for color,
one for black and white—he had been joined by children
running back and forth at a nearby book fair, curious passersby
and the occasional inquisitive security guard.
In the afternoon, a friend came by. “We enjoyed the
sunshine, the peaceful and beautiful Sunday with numerous
lovely little kids, and shared ideas of art and philosophy,”
says Gao, a doctoral student in TC’s Art and Art
Education program.
In the evening, after the moon “started to shed soft light
on Alma Mater”—the famous statue of Columbia’s Athenalike
icon—the camera is finally down.
“We kind of assume photography is instantaneous,
but I believe time in photography should be as long as we
want, or as short as we want,” says Gao, conceding that this
philosophy puts him at odds with the apparent goals of
modern camera makers, who produce ever quicker modes
of picture taking. “If the time is too short or too fast, the
outcome is totally different. Time should be one of the keys
to decide what the image should look like. But normally,
we really don’t consider that.”
28 T C T O D A Y l s p r i n g 2 0 1 1
“Alma Mater–The Providence of Columbia University-I,” by Jun Gao