Yuji Hamada toys with ordinary spaces by defining them through the elemental components of the photograph: light and shadow. By using a smoke machine to exacerbate the stringy, effervescent rays of natural (and only natural) light, he breaths new life into sunshine, suggesting it is alive, powerful, directed and defining. What he aims to define is the extraordinary in otherwise dismissed sites, through these two coexistent and dependent ideas: without light their cannot be shadows and shadows often define the boundaries of light.

Untitled from the series Pulsar, 2009 by Yuji Hamada

His series, Pulsar, presumably takes its name from the highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars of the same name whose beams of electromagnetic radiation can only be observed when they have rotated towards the Earth. Like these intergalactic forms, the beams of light that disperse through Hamada's images emit from a pointed source: the sun—the star at the center of it all. The sun, which here on planet Earth controls the climate, dictates seasons, and is the reason for most life, is articulated and further dispersed through the leaves and branches it has enabled to exist. It is occasionally interrupted by man-made forms—a fence, automobile or cement wall—where the light cannot pass and must find a new direction.

Untitled from the series Pulsar, 2009 by Yuji Hamada

Pulsar is grounded in one strict rule Hamada made for himself: no strobe lights or artificial lights; only natural light may be used. Using the aforementioned smoke machine and a series of filters to disperse the particles of light, Hamada captures each of these frames on a large format Linhof Master Technika camera.

Despite Hamada's rigorous, technical process, his images evoke a feeling of lightness (no pun intended) and the great serendipity photographers often feel to catch rays of sun coursing through the trees at just the right time of day. His manufactured pulsars seem like fantastical versions of the blocks we walk down each day, each a tiny capsule of magic in its transformative moment.

You can see more work from this series on Yuji's website.