This image is a composite of four images of the Great Hall of the Folger Shakespeare Library, combined in-camera. I made a copy of the combined image, flipped it vertically, expanded the canvas of the original combined image downward, and pasted the inverted copy below the original combined image, thus creating a mirror image of the composite.

Buns Of Steel was taken in 2025 in Prague, Czech Republic. Several streets are nearby so getting an encompassing perspective is difficult. This was a very hot sunny day and the reflections were good. In 2022, Černý created Lilith, a nearly 80-foot-tall, 35-ton figure of a woman made of metal. Based in Prague, she hugs the side of an apartment building, leaning towards the structure with her legs slightly placed apart. The statue isn’t stationary either—Lilith periodically turns her head 180 degrees.

There is a lot of serendipity with light painting even with advance planning—so it is important to keep shooting, make adjustments, and capture multiple images. The light is delivered by a light wand tool from behind the balls. The lens balls and the reflective mylar underneath them bounce the light around. The colors of the light demand attention because some are hotter than others requiring exposure adjustments. Here the colors were relatively similar, and the intense saturation made the simple geometry just pop.