The Heavens

By Janelle Lynch

Published by photo-eye
December 2018

Book by Barbara Bosworth
Radius Books, Santa Fe, NM, 2018

The Heavens, Barbara Bosworth’s newest monograph by Radius, transports me beyond the book’s pages into the cosmos. Sublime color and black-and-white images of the sun, moon, and sky that Bosworth made with her 8x10 camera using long exposures or in combination with a telescope, are timely — if not urgent — reminders of the possibility to cultivate wonder and perspective. They summon the marriage of marvel and science in Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek; the exalted spirit of Mary Oliver’s poem, "The Summer Day"; the petition for humility and kindness in Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot”; and Einstein’s assertion, “[t]he most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.” The elegant book, masterfully designed by David Chickey, includes writings by Margot Anne Kelley, Joanne Lukitsh, and Owen Gingerich, as well as reproductions from Bosworth’s notebooks and a removable planisphere. The Heavens affirms Bosworth’s openness to the transcendent and the dedication to awe, and it inspires the same.