To illuminate this portrait I used 2 Akari light sculptures designed by American Japanese designer Isamu Noguchi. He chose to name his Light Sculptures Akari, a word that means \'light\' in Japanese, connoting both illumination and physical lightness. Handmade in Gifu from high quality paper produces from mulberry bark, they have a collapsible structure allowing for play between material and immaterial. The light these Akari lights cast has always reminded me of the golden hour, in which I love to photograph people. I have a few of these light sculptures in my home and decided to start photographing people with it. In this image I photographed Nathaniel with 2 of these lanterns in a studio setting, cutting him off from the natural world yet bringing the sun back inside, showing the warm encompassing glow of these lights yet subtracting the colour from the image afterwards, eliminating distractions and emphasising the subject, Nathaniel.
