"Last Light / First Light" photographs

Last Light / First Light
Photography | 2001–Ongoing

Last Light / First Light is a long-term photographic project that documents the winter solstice—the shortest day of the year—through a double-exposure technique that visually traces the Earth’s rotation. Since 2001, Mattingly has traveled annually to a site with a flat, unobstructed horizon facing both east and west. There, she captures the final light of sunset and the return of first light at sunrise using a single roll of medium-format film. The film is rewound and exposed twice, each time rotated 90 degrees, creating a luminous cross that mirrors the Earth's axial movement in relation to the sun.

This durational work reflects Mattingly’s interest in cyclical time, ecological rhythms, and photographic memory. The resulting images are meditative and abstract, invoking the celestial mechanics that regulate daily life while encouraging reflection on continuity, impermanence, and planetary change. By compressing two temporal thresholds—dusk and dawn—into a single frame, the photographs offer a symbolic portrait of transition: darkness and light, ending and beginning.

The project serves as a form of ritual practice—quiet, persistent, and reverent. In an era of accelerated technological time and mass image production, Last Light / First Light resists speed and saturation. It invites viewers to consider photography not as instant capture, but as an instrument of attunment to natural cycles.

Project Details
Years: 2001–Ongoing
Medium: Double-exposed C-prints on 2¼ film
Dimensions: 20 x 20 inches (each)

"This series started as a quiet way of marking time. On the solstice, I go to an edge: a flat, open area, and wait for the light to disappear, and then return. The film is double-exposed, rotated 90 degrees, so each photograph holds both the beginning and end of the shortest day of the year. It’s a meditation on thresholds, personal and planetary." —Mary Mattingly

Description
Last Light / First Light merges concept with analog technique, positioning itself within the lineage of photographic experimentation with time and landscape. The project serves as a quiet counterpoint to rapid image production, offering an environmentally attuned, contemplative approach to visual art. Its durational nature and minimalist form echo slow media and climate-conscious practices, while its simplicity underscores a deeper cosmological inquiry. As both documentation and ritual, this series invites viewers to consider photography as a medium of attunement, care, and planetary reflection.

Special editions of these photographs are available here. 

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2002
20 x 20” C-Print

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2003
20 x 20” C-Print

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2004
20 x 20” C-Print

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2005
20 x 20” C-Print

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2006
20 x 20” C-Print

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2007
20 x 20” C-Print

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2008
20 x 20” C-Print

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2009
20 x 20” C-Print

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2010
20 x 20” C-Print

 

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2011
20 x 20” C-Print

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2012
20 x 20” C-Print

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2013
20 x 20” C-Print

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2014
20 x 20” C-Print

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2015
20 x 20” C-Print

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2016
20 x 20” C-Print

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2017
20 x 20” C-Print

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2018
20 x 20” C-Print

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2019
20 x 20” C-Print

Last Light / First Light (on the shortest day of the year), 2020
20 x 20” C-Print