Perpetual Motion

If a picture is worth a thousand words, these images are worth millions: They’re the result of more than 18,400 exposures made during six athletic contests on campus in recent months. “What I do is a kind of still time lapse,” explains photographer Pelle Cass. “I set up my camera on a tripod and stay in the same position the whole game.” Then he spends about 40 hours on a computer to assemble a final piece of art. “I try to convey a sense of ecstatic chaos—rhythm, pattern, and bodily pleasure that conspire to turn sports back into a game, one that may be invisible to the eye but clear to my camera,” says the fine arts photographer whose work is in the collections of Harvard’s Fogg Museum, the Polaroid Collection, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In the process he never moves elements within the frame—all athletes are positioned exactly where they were during the game. The results are mesmerizing.

Pelle Cass lives in Brookline, Massachusetts. You can view his work on his website.