Jonathan Knight’s Meditative Series ‘Exhale’ Invites Us to Slow Down and Practice Noticing

Herbert Simon, a computer scientist and economist, once cautioned that an abundance of information can lead to a scarcity of attention. In our modern age of digital inundation, it becomes crucial to remind ourselves to slow down. It's easy to become distracted by countless stimuli, snapping photos at the first glance of something intriguing before moving on.

Photographer Jonathan Knight, however, finds inspiration in the stillness and quietude of everyday life. Knight's visual style is characterized by ethereal, minimalist images that capture the subtleties of color and the emotional impact of looking. He explains that the series Exhale aims to explore these nuances in color and the emotional experience of observing.

The photographs in Exhale primarily feature water, but they can be better understood as portraits of atmosphere. They showcase clear skies filled with stars, foggy mornings, and the gentle release of rain from heavy clouds. Knight's background in photojournalism and landscape architecture, combined with his contemplation on how we experience landscapes when we stop trying to document them and instead spend time with them, inspired this project.

There's also a technological aspect to Exhale. In our contemporaneous culture driven by instant image creation, computational photography, AI-generated imagery, and constant visual consumption, Knight uses technology to deliberately slow down the photographic process and produce images that resist instant consumption. There's a sense of restraint in these images, as they showcase the mundane without flashy elements or defining moments, inviting viewers to practice noticing through long exposure, both photographically and in the act of looking itself. To learn more about Knight and his work, visit his Instagram.