Beginnings

It all started with a curious eBay-find from Ukraine. A 26 pound, X-ray lens from the 1960’s. As one of the top three fastest lenses ever produced, what would this F/0.73 monstrosity reveal?
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Painfully little. After a week of trying, I realized l had merely acquired the world’s heaviest paper weight. Preparations for a final de-rig began, when suddenly there was a glimpse of a strange, ghost-like image. A constantly evolving, micro-cosmos had suddenly opened up inside the lens, only to vanish moments later with the sun dipping below the horizon.
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I had forgotten to take pictures. So the rest of the evening was spent with a torchlight, trying to recreate what I had seen. The following day was also spent in vain. So I stopped. Waited. Until the sun did what it had done the day prior. Except this time I did record what I saw.
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I have since learned that the images are not unlike ‘snowflakes’, in that no two images are ever the same.
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They also only appear towards the end of the sunset. The last 5 minutes being the most interesting. The setting sun also seems to be the only light-source capable of generating these images.
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A simple, analogue darkroom approach is applied. The images remain ‘untouched’, meaning no image manipulation other than luminance, contrast and colour has been adjusted. What you see, is what the camera recorded.