Françoise Holtzmacher

Sydney’s strong and defined light creates deep and dense shadows. In the city people constantly move between street corners that are gleaming bright and those that are pitch dark. Swallowed by the dark, they disappear into the unknown and become a mystery, hidden from sight, lost or maybe saved. In the light, their bare faces and emotions are exposed, blinded, unprotected, vulnerable, real, sometimes strong, saved or maybe lost.
Looking at passers-by slipping from darkness into light and back again, oblivious to their surroundings, I can’t help but reflect on the meaning of these two opposing and yet complementary elements. Darkness and light are good and evil, knowledge and ignorance, truth and lie, trust and fear, love and hate, happiness and despair, or life and death. There is a fine line between these elements, what they symbolise, a line that can be swiftly and easily crossed. As a photographer I try to capture the moment when people traverse this line, observing how this transition affects their demeanour and emotions.