14 August 2025
Dear Crina,
I hope you don’t mind me sending you this out-of-sequence letter. I wanted to share something that, I hope, adds an extra dimension to our ongoing collaboration. Maybe it’s a bit silly but here goes.
As a scientist yourself, I am sure you are familiar with Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist and pioneer of quantum theory. I’m ashamed to say that my knowledge was pretty scant and remains patchy. On the last day of our visit to the Danish capital, we happened to be wandering past the University of Copenhagen where a handsome bronze bust of Bohr is located. I took the photo above, concentrating on the shadow. Later, when I looked at the film scans, I noticed that the shadow retained something of Bohr’s profile but split across the wall and pilaster. It reminded me of a photograph by Brassai except, of course, my shadow has a corresponding face, whereas Brassai’s is a figment of the imagination.
I decided to do a little bit of research about Bohr. According to the university institute website, his principle of complementarity
holds that a physical phenomenon is observed in two different ‘complementary’ ways depending on the experimental setup. For example, light could sometimes behave like waves and other times like particles. Both images were necessary to obtain a complete description of the phenomenon, even though they excluded each other.1
This is referred to as the Copenhagen Interpretation.
I also encountered some fantastic quantum mechanics terminology: the uncertainty principle, entanglement, superposition etc. As a non-scientist, I found all this very exciting and a little befuddling. The language of science can often seem poetic to a non-expert. I also enjoyed the fact that Einstein’s theorising about waves and particles was related to the behaviour of photons, the material used by all photographers. Quantum photography anyone?2
At the risk of trivialising the science, it struck me as amusing that our collaboration mirrors some aspects of quantum theory:
We make different kinds of photographs that are complementary.
Neither of us knows precisely where our collaboration will take us. We are operating with uncertainty.
We occupy a superposition. We are in two places, living in different countries, in different time zones, speaking different languages and inhabiting different genders.
Despite our differences, we are entangled, one person’s decisions affecting the other in an ongoing dialogue.
The Copenhagen Interpretation could, with a bit of imagination, also be applied to the way that diptychs operate, a recent theme in our correspondence. Both images, different but related, are needed in order to generate a complete description of the ‘work’.
OK. I can hear scientists groaning from here. I realise this is all nonsense and a wild misinterpretation of scientific theories. But it did fire my imagination and help me to reflect on our collaboration, my photographs and my experience of Copenhagen.
Some of this is contained in the image and text pairings I chose for a recent post Either/Or. Copenhagen is an enigmatic place. Perhaps all cities are, especially when you are visiting for a week. It’s impossible to get much below the surface in such a short space of time. What I discovered is that the photographs I made, all whilst walking through the city with my wife (rather than on specific photo expeditions) revealed to me some inchoate feelings about the city and its culture. In other words, I developed conscious ideas about the place by physically being there but also a set of unconscious (or subconscious) responses, in the form of photographs. I tend to photograph whatever I’m drawn to. I don’t really question this urge, trusting in my intuition. This is also true of the editing and sequencing process.
For example, in constructing an imaginary zine, I decided to place these two images next to one another, without really thinking very hard about it. The first depicts a group of medieval soldiers in bas relief, from the base of an obelisk, opposite the Church of Our Lady (frequented by Kierkegaard). Apart from the bronze sculpture link and the similar tonality, it slowly dawned on me that both images connote violence. Armed men interrupt Hans Tavsen’s sermon, in Viborg on the memorial to the Reformation of Denmark, and Niels Bohr is ‘celebrated’ for developing nuclear fission and the atom bomb.3
Copenhagen looks and feels like an oasis of calm reasonableness, a little utopia of smart streets, solid houses, green spaces and bicycles.4 But I gradually sensed, through the pictures, something else lurking just beneath the surface.
‘Blind’ statues and alleys, a bomb blast cloud, roots exposed in a smashed pot and a box of decapitated heads. I can’t put this feeling easily into words. Perhaps it was the brooding weather, mostly overcast and a little rainy, but I sensed a tussle taking place, below the surface: between polite civility and barely concealed angst; between conservation and progress; between keeping alive dreams of a better life and preparing for barbarians at the gates.5 People were mostly friendly, but also reserved, cautious and conservative. The manicured streets and parks were beautiful, but it didn’t take us long to find grubby, rain-soaked flyovers and desperate appeals for Palestinian justice. The city is not particularly diverse. What’s Denmark like outside the liberal metropolis, I wondered?
Even Christiania, a symbol of international anarchistic liberty, seemed to be full of hostile, angry people complaining violently about their associates and annoyed by tourists, like us.
Pairing the images with short texts from Kierkegaard’s Either/Or seemed to provide a useful level of ambiguity.6 I enjoyed the friction between the words (selected by chance) and the pictures. Again, I put them together fairly instinctively, trying not to overthink. However, it was only really when I added a soundscape to the video slideshow version of the imaginary zine that a more ominous atmosphere began to cohere.7 I chose a copy-write free soundtrack from an online archive, looking for something ambient and minimal. It didn’t take long to find something suitable. When I listened back to the slideshow, I sensed a more insistent, eerie, brooding quality in the images.8 I made an alternative sequence of pictures and texts, without a soundtrack, for my website just to test the difference.9
I’m in danger of rambling now so should probably try to wrap this up. I suppose what I’ve mostly been thinking about is uncertainty and contradiction, of the unknowability of things, of one and one making four.10 Is it possible to hold two seemingly opposing views about something simultaneously without reaching any kind of judgement? Beauty and decay, restfulness and anxiety. How can photographs and words together help to develop a tolerance for ambiguity, openness and allusiveness? How can we know what’s going on underneath when all we can see is surface? It seems physicists are content to accept (for now) two different explanations of ‘reality’.11 Most importantly, how can dialogue between two strangers increase a capacity for unknowing, for questioning one’s assumptions and for changing one’s mind.12
Rest assured that our collaboration provides me with significantly more than a quantum of solace.13
Reading back through this post, I sense that I may have been very unfair to Copenhagen. What city isn’t a mass of contradictions? Did I expect the capital of Denmark to be completely harmonious, instead of slightly atonal? I’m also not sure whether what I’ve written makes much sense?!
So, apologies for my incoherent ramblings and, again, for interjecting this letter out of sequence. The six weeks of a school summer holiday allow for plenty of thinking and writing time!
Now it’s back to zine experiments and a trip to the dentist! Sending positive vibes to you and yours and very much looking forward to your next experiența spațiului.
Your photography friend,
Jon
P.S. I almost forgot to mention that I recently read Isak Dinesen’s story Babette’s Feast after re-watching the film - one of my favourites. Is this not a story about the reconciliation of differences and the realisation that “in this beautiful world of ours, all things are possible”?
This letter is one of a sequence entitled Experiența Spațiului. Here are links to the others:
Experiența Spațiului - Fuzzy Borders - by Jon Nicholls
Experiența Spațiului - Cadaques - by Crina Prida
Experiența Spațiului - Formidable Encounters - by Jon Nicholls
Experiența Spațiului - Londra - by Crina Prida
Experiența Spațiului - One and one is four - by Jon Nicholls
These posts will always be free but, if you enjoy reading them, you can support my analogue photography habit by contributing to the film fund. All donations of whatever size are very gratefully received.
I’m clearly not the first person to attempt to make a connection between photography and quantum mechanics!
Apparently, Bohr was passionate about the need for this knowledge to be shared universally, aware of its potential to lead to a nuclear arms race.
Denmark is second only to Finland in being the happiest country on Earth.
Kierkegaard had a famously troubled relationship with the city and his homeland.
Interestingly, Richie Edwin, a musician, contacted me to say that he had heard something quite different when he viewed the pictures, responding to the “softness of the light” and, consequently, less “brash”.
General relativity, quantum mechanics and a Theory of Everything
Apologies. I couldn’t resist a James Bond joke.
Dear Jon, before going to my a little overdue letter belonging in our project, let me say a few things. I read the letter yesterday, but I had a very busy schedule (a small painting exhibition opening in my clinic), so I am commenting only today. I like your science vs. art approach in this text. Maybe I am not exactly a person of science, but of course, I cannot deny my academic upbringing. And yes, this may be my primary reason for overthinking a lot. I doubt my decisions, my abilities, my "talent", my choices in people, etc. This is of course a major setback when it comes to organizing a portfolio, or even putting together a newsletter or a presentation. I appreciate and learn a lot from your impeccable articles, and your amazing and vast knowledge of photography and art. Thank you for having me as a "pen pal" of sorts in this adventure. And yes, We should all embrace the freedom of changing our minds and ourselves from time to time.
Just coming across these photo essays Jon. Thanks for posting them (look forward to back tracking). Photography always strikes me as a medium that sees surface AND the subtext (often after you have captured the image). Remarkable that way. As always like your juxtapositions.