River Colour

Every day beginning in 2016, I have been photographing the river Aare which passes in front of our house – initially by hand, and currently by way of an automated camera. The images are taken under as constant lighting conditions as possible. Several images are then compared to arrive at an average colour for each day. In this way, an archive of change is generated, reflecting seasonal cycles, random fluctuations in the weather, and also longer term transformations. Sometimes the Aare exhibits an unchanging ‘bottle green’ for weeks, only to suddenly change to mud brown after rain, or bright turquoise, when the melt water from the glaciers arrives each spring.

The results can be presented in a variety of ways, e.g. as vertical strip images showing one month at a time, or as an endlessly scrolling image on a digital screen. Plans exist to extend the project to a worldwide network of rivers, such as the Ganges, Yangtze, Mississippi, Sambesi, Nile - with AI sampling of colours and realtime presentation online. Please feel free to contact me to discuss ideas for a possible presentation / collaboration.