White Flowers and Light on Black Body

It is a photographic series created with the intention of fostering an appreciation for the light contained within the black body. When the body is black, the absorption is clear: all the light that strikes its surface is absorbed. For a black body much larger than the wavelength, the light energy absorbed at any wavelength λ per unit of time is strictly proportional to the blackbody curve.

This work is inspired by the poem A Black Body for Black Love by Maelynn Ford.

Write all your love letters to me in black ink

I want to feel like you see me, my skin

The depth of my feeling for you

I have a black heart in a black body

I give new meaning to black heart

A black heart isn’t dead or cold; instead, it’s

Teeming with life and emotion, like the tongue of the ocean

Deep and dark, with all the love I have — all of it

I have a black heart in a black body

How full I am, bursting with love — love for you

With a world testing me, testing my resolve, my steadfast love

My black love IS love

I am reclaiming the wholeness of black

The intensity, its perfection for love — for my love

I have a black heart in a black body

How perfect this pairing

How lovely black ink is

For telling and retelling, and reclaiming love

And histories that have been tinted pink

And colored red like blood clots — NO

I have a black heart in a black body

This is the superior love I have, not whitewashed

Like church songs or bleached like romcoms

My love is black and true, truth like headlines in black ink

Declaring my love for you

I have a black heart in a black body

How wonderful