#DUANE MICHALS SEQUENCES SERIES#

In the pictures, the models lips get bigger, her eye stretches and – in the last image, when I made her look at the camera – her cheek appeared in the mirror and there was no face at all.

#DUANE MICHALS SEQUENCES SERIES#

I made a series of shots and called them Dr Heisenberg’s Magic Mirror of Uncertainty. Of course, we can’t see energy changing state at this level, but to see her distort into all these faces was still marvellous. It seemed as if I was looking at her energy evolving and vibrating right in front of my eyes. It was strange, liquid-like and very exciting. When my model moved it even slightly, her image changed completely. I thought I could illustrate Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle with the mirror, which transforms everything in front of it.

People on the flight must have thought I was the vainest person in the world – carrying a big mirror with me in the cabin.

I was so excited by its distortions, I brought it back to America. I bought the convex mirror in an antique store in Bath, on a visit to the Royal Photographic Society. How could anyone not be curious about that? The notion that the fundamental expression of energy is something chaotic pulled the carpet from under a lot of thinking.

That was revolutionary and it prompted Einstein to say he could not believe God would play dice with the universe. Then Werner Heisenberg, a quantum pioneer, said you cannot predict with any certainty the position or velocity of a particle – they interact in total chaos.

Duane michals sequences