Waves breaking on a beach, from Kinetic Solitude photography series.

Untitled #39, from Kinetic Solitude

—Ocean’s last light

Spring mechanism before a round light source, from the Concentric Diffraction photography series.

Untitled #1, from Concentric Diffraction

Investigating internal mechanisms

Folded paper origami, from the Origami Folds photographic series.

Untitled #19, from Origami Folds

Exploring simplicity and complexity

Exploring the intersection of art and science in 2D and 3D

Howard Lewis is a photographer, sculptor, and inventor whose work lives at the intersection of art and science. His images make the invisible tangible — physical forces caught mid-motion, structures under tension, the quiet fragility of environmental systems, the geometry hidden inside a fold of paper. Working experimentally in the studio, he builds sculptural arrangements, manipulates light, and pushes photographic materials to reveal what the eye alone cannot see.

Lewis trained in film at Boston University and built a career as a commercial and editorial photographer before stepping away to pursue entirely self-directed work. A chance encounter with Dr. Edwin Land — physicist, inventor, and founder of Polaroid — deepened his integration of science into the photographic process, a pursuit he has continued across decades. He holds three patents, creates welded metal sculpture, and has written screenplays; these disciplines don’t sit beside his photography so much as run through it. His work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including the James A. Michener Art Museum, the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, and the Gladstone Regional Art Gallery in Australia. His Origami Folds series is in the permanent collection at Columbia Universities’ Avery Library of Art and Architecture.