Things That Look Like the MOON (but are not the moon)

A Playful look at ordinary (and not so ordinary) objects that look like the moon which explores our perception vs. reality in photographs.

Sixteen images in a hand-made photographic artist book with writing by the artist.
Accordion design. 46 pages in a hard cover.
Closed 6.5 x 6.5 x 1”. Laid out flat 6 x 276”.
Signed, limited edition of 50 + 5 APs. Current price $595.
Books created using a classic cyanotype formula, on Hahnemuhle Sumi-e paper (no ink involved).

Price as of 04/04/23. Not a guarantee of future pricing or availablility.

STATEMENT

In the 1960’s the moon was big and I was little.
In July 1969 I remember being on an airliner for the first time. It was the kind with propellers, that you climbed up a stairway on the tarmac to get into. I was five years old. My parents and I were flying to Rochester NY to visit Eastman Kodak to see how film was made. The pilot came on to announce that Apollo 11 had launched for the moon! There were two firsts on the same day: air travel for me and space travel for everyone.  I remember my father telling me that when I grew up I'd be able to travel to the moon as easily as we were traveling to Rochester in the air that day. As you can see in the photo above of my six year old self, I went Trick or Treating dressed as the moon that fall. I don’t have the costume anymore but I do still have the lunar orbiter and lander cutouts that I’m holding in the picture. I’ve been fascinated by the moon for a long time.

This project is about our perception vs. reality. The moment when we believe that something we see in a photograph is true enough to believe. What makes us decide? The Ball of String is round but it is obviously not the moon.  This Human Cranium is a bit closer, but we are not convinced.  Cantaloupe, though its surface has craters, is certainly not the moon. But NiteLite? The moment we see it we decide that, THAT IS the moon and all the others are imposters. In reality NiteLite is not the moon. It is a plastic ball with a light bulb in it. But it looks so much more like the moon than the rest that it becomes real and we, demanding truth, decide to believe.

Things That Look Like the MOON (but are not the moon) started in 2018, with the gift of a night light in the shape of the moon. In December of that year I visited the NYPL exhibitions Blue Prints: The Pioneering Photographs of Anna Atkins where I saw her books printed with cyanotype and Anna Atkins Refracted: Contemporary Works, where I saw Eric William Carroll’s accordion fold book. I’d never seen anything like either artists’ books before. In the summer of 2019 the moon was big again, on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. I visited the Metropolitan Museum and saw Apollo’s Muse: The Moon in the age of Photography.   It included Kiki Smith’s Tidal, another accordion book, this time with the moon as the subject. I remembered the moon night light and now knew how I wanted to shoot it. I started exposing on 4x5 Kodak TXP film for a nicely sized cyanotype contact print. A friend saw an early print of NiteLite and asked “Is that really the moon?” My response: “No, it looks like the moon but it’s not”inspired the title: Things That Look Like the MOON (but are not the moon) and that title led to images of balls of string, cantaloupes, tennis balls and more.  

16 images and text are printed on 46 pages in an accordion design held in a hard cover. The text describes how I came to own the objects pictured, project statements and technical info. MOON is printed photographically using a classic cyanotype formula (no ink involved). The 4x5 images were cropped to fit the square format of the book.. The negatives to print the covers, endpapers, text blocks and other graphics were created in PhotoShop, using the Futura Medium font, and output onto Pictorico OHP film, which were also  contact printed using cyanotype. For more info about the bookmaking aspect of this project go to The MOON at  redbarnletterpress.com

MOON can be experienced as a hand held book or as a sculptural object due to its accordion design. Pages can be turned as with a traditional binding or the text body can be laid out flat (it is 23 feet long that way). In addition, the cover can stand on its own and the text arranged in a variety of positions. The book is printed on Hahnemuhle Sumi-e which is a heavy tissue, brite white, strong and slightly translucent.  


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All images, text and graphics © 2020-2024 by David Sokosh.