Darkness is inherently unsettling. This text and the accompany picture are sort of reliefs. In the microseconds that it took for you to realize this page is black your body began releasing small amounts of neurotransmitters that signal for the release of hormones from your adrenal medulla to dilate the pupils in your eye, raise your blood pressure, and constrict the muscles in your anus; a typical stress response.  The stress response whether detectable or not is due to that unexplainable aspect of darkness, which in a way answers its own question.  Let’s consider the color black, which is really a misnomer.  Black is not a color; it is the absence of light.  Your eyes can not actually see black they can only not see light.  The “rod” cells in your eye only secrete proteins when wavelengths between 400nm and 700nm reach your, so even while you think your perceiving the numbers on the wall clock, in fact your really just observing a contrast of perception.  A camera works no different.  Light travels in through the lens of the camera and then reacts with silver halide salts on the film.  Without light there is no reaction, no perception, all that exists is that unsettling feeling of nothing - darkness. 

This is the irony of Will Navidson, the consummate photographer living in the House.  Will’s life is solely based on the idea of creating the perfect perception of the outside world.   Anyone can speak of starvation but Delial is starvation.  Unfortunately* for Will the house is like the color black, it defies perception.  It never mattered whether he uses a 1962 H16 hand crank Bolex 16mm, a Panasonic Hi 8, or 35mm Nikon; there was nothing to perceive and there was nothing he could do about it.  This is the intriguing aspect of Expedition 5.  When he finally reaches that moment of complete despair he is no longer Will the photographer.  Instead he is Will the uncaring father, Will the insensitive brother, and Will the selfish lover.  Perhaps the real irony of the house is the man acclaimed for his ability to perceive could not render into focus the most obvious thing in his life.  Only in a sea of darkness could Navidson see the truth.           

*or fortunately