daydreamsthroughalens

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Theme Project Proposal

For this project, taking some inspiration from the artists I have researched, I want to go about the theme by focusing on the concept of "maladaptive daydreaming". maladaptive daydreaming, also known as the 'daydreaming' disorder is a condition where a person regularly experiences daydreams that are intense and highly distracting. So distracting that it affects the person's ability to complete tasks or notice the people in front of them, Maladaptive daydreaming is often a trauma response to childhood trauma or abuse. I personally suffer from this condition. I often use maladaptive daydreaming as an escape from stressful situations and as a way to cope with my anxiety and apprehensiveness for the future. This, coupled with the fact that in some cases, my "dreaminess" has become an unhealthy part of my daily life is why I wanted to choose it as my subject. As for techniques, I plan to experiment and approach it in a way that is both planned and spontaneous to capture how Maladaptive daydreaming tends to show up for me. It's inopportune but blissful and it is homely. I plan to simply use my home and my daily life as the setting, using my personal ring light for additional light if necessary. Again, I want to create images that feel dreamy but grounded somewhat in reality. Playful and imaginative like a child but very clearly out of touch in some way. I might achieve those by looking into filters but may also resort to directly drawing on the images themselves. My objective is to create something personal but to also evaluate how maladaptive daydreaming has affected my life and continues to do so. I understand that the concept is also relatable to many my age who might also experience the same things but maybe aren't away they are doing so. I want people to walk away from my work, inquisitive, thoughtful, and maybe comforted in the fantasy I create.

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Photography Research Post 8

Casey Lance Brown, a landscape futurist, explores the complex and often misunderstood narratives surrounding ecological changes through his conceptual, lens-based artwork. His training as a landscape architect at Duke University and Harvard Design School, along with his fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, inspires his unique approach to capturing the Anthropocene in all of its environmental shifts. Brown's art has been featured at venues such as the Miami Art Week, Photoville Atlanta Beltline, and the Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh. He has also contributed to the U.S. Fifth National Climate Assessment, solidifying his reputation as an insightful commentator on landscape futures.

One of Brown’s most notable projects, titled Kudzilla, is an exploration of the kudzu vine's role in ecological restoration and its subsequent cultural mythologization. Using hyper-spectral imagery, a technique that reveals light wavelengths invisible to the human eye, Brown dramatizes the rapid spread and ecological impact of kudzu, presenting it as a "hyperobject" — a sprawling, hard-to-grasp phenomenon, much like climate change itself.

In terms of medium, the Kudzilla series includes digital prints and large-scale photographic installations, often ranging from 24x36 inches to 60x40 inches. Brown’s use of vibrant, manipulated colors highlights the vine's aggressive growth patterns, mimicking its almost monstrous, uncontrollable spread. Through these works, he challenges common perceptions of kudzu as merely an invasive species. Instead, he emphasizes its historical role in soil restoration during the Dust Bowl era when it was bioengineered to heal over-extracted lands in the Southern United States.

The series has been exhibited at notable venues like the Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh and the Photoville Atlanta Beltline, sparking dialogue about the historical, ecological, and cultural dimensions of invasive species narratives. Brown’s work blends scientific analysis with visual storytelling, aiming to reshape public perceptions of environmental change and highlight the human role in shaping the Anthropocene landscape.

This is undoubtedly a departure from the kinds of pieces that I have carefully selected over the course of this semester. I am deeply attracted to the futuristic, neat, and nearly abstract feeling I get from the work. While I am not personally and emotionally moved by the concept of climate change I understand its importance in not just the earth but to our survival as humans as well.

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Photography research post 7

Jonas Yip’s Shan Shui series is a striking photographic exploration that reimagines the classical Chinese landscape art form through contemporary techniques. Yip is a fine art photographer and musician based in Los Angeles, who created this series using expired Polaroid film, allowing the film’s natural chemical responses to produce abstract landscapes that mimic the elements of the traditional Chinese painting technique known as “shan shui” painting, which translates to “mountain water.” This art form, dating back to the 10th century, emphasizes mountains, rivers, and occasional waterfalls, focusing on capturing the spirit and inner essence of nature rather than its literal appearance.

In Yip's style of Shan Shui, Yip uses experimental methods, including homemade lenses and manipulated photo materials, to evoke the meditative rhythm and balance found in Chinese landscape painting. He extrudes the photo-sensitive chemicals of the Polaroid film by hand and exposes the film to ambient light, which interacts with the chemicals to create swirling forms reminiscent of mountains, clouds, and mist. The physical manipulation of the film adds an organic, tactile dimension, and each print has unique, unpredictable textures and shapes that draw viewers in on both abstract and conceptual levels.

The works in this series vary in size and are typically presented as standalone prints or as part of installations in galleries. Shan Shui has been displayed in venues across Asia and the United States, including the San Diego Museum of Art, where Yip’s work also resides in the permanent collection. This series honors traditional Chinese philosophies about capturing nature’s vitality while updating them with a distinctly modern twist, creating landscapes that bridge ancient practice with contemporary photographic techniques.

I am personally in love with the color and not only that, I have come to realize recently that I enjoy the idea of approaching photography in a way that isn't so much based in tradition, one that breaks the rules a little bit and allows for creativity. The fact that what makes up the image is in fact the chemical reaction within the polaroid rather than a plain image on its own is what really attracted me to his work. He has a website that had more of his work if anyone is interested in seeing it, but I personally believe this is my favorite collection of his.

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Photography research post 6

Claire Mallet’s exhibition, opening tonight at Duncan Miller Projects Gallery in Los Angeles as part of the Verge Collective, showcases a unique perspective on the age-old subject of the female nude. Mallet, a Los Angeles-based photographer originally from the English countryside, has dedicated her artistic career to exploring the female form through her lens. With her background in Media, Journalism, and Photography from Bristol, England, she brings a blend of classical and cinematic influences to her work, drawing inspiration from Hollywood's golden era, Dutch Master paintings, and iconic photography.

One of the highlights of her exhibition is the series Shameless, a collection of photographs inspired by Hollywood's "pre-code" era, spanning from the late 1920s to July 1934. This period in filmmaking, before the enforcement of strict moral guidelines, depicted and strong, independent, and unapologetically bold female characters. This becomes the source of her inspiration. Mallet's work pays homage to this era by capturing the spirit of these fearless women who defied societal norms during a time when gender roles were strictly enforced and the right to vote was still a recent victory for women.

The photographs in the collection "Shameless" portray her subjects in various states of nudity or semi-nudity, but the focus is not on sexuality; rather, it emphasizes beauty, empowerment, and self-acceptance. Mallet’s approach to photographing women stems from a desire to challenge contemporary standards of beauty perpetuated by the media. Her images offer a space for her models to feel empowered and comfortable in their own skin, contrasting the heavily edited portrayals of women seen today and the more raw, confident depictions of the pre-code Hollywood era.

The exhibition at Duncan Miller Projects is a testament to Mallet’s ability to blend historical influences with a modern sensibility, offering a refreshing perspective on the female form through the eyes of a female photographer. It invites viewers to consider how the interpretation of the female body can shift when captured from a woman’s point of view, moving away from purely sexualized portrayals to a focus on strength, elegance, and the timeless allure of the unapologetic female figure.

I can't say much about this style of work other than the fact that it caught my eye. I used to have a fascination with the way old films and movies looked, mainly in the 1900s. So when I saw the work I was immediately attracted to it and I found myself drawn to Mallet's style and approach to specifically nude photography.

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Photography research post 5

Barbara Cole’s work transports viewers to otherworldly realms, blending elements of surrealism and ethereal beauty, whether capturing scenes above or below water. Originally a high school dropout and fashion model, Cole’s career pivoted when she accepted a job as a fashion editor for The Toronto Sun, an opportunity that quickly turned into her first role behind the camera, shooting fashion spreads. Self-taught and deeply driven, Cole honed her skills until she launched her own photography studio in the early 1980s, establishing herself as a unique voice in both commercial and fine art photography.

Cole’s images are dreamlike, merging painterly techniques with experimental photography, especially in her fine art series. Her work with Polaroid’s SX-70 camera, which she began using in the 1980s, echoes the tones and textures of her influences—Sarah Moon’s bold originality, Lucien Freud’s raw yet intimate portrayals, and Dominique Isserman’s evocative compositions. Her photographs possess an almost liquid quality, with soft colors and blurred edges that transform her subjects into figures from a dream or an alternate reality. Cole’s process explores the depths of photography’s possibilities, showing an endless fascination with the medium’s potential to capture both presence and mystery.

In her commercial career, Cole continues to integrate her fine art sensibilities, bringing an avant-garde approach to her more technically rigorous work. She has exhibited widely, and her images have been featured on numerous book covers, adding to her international reputation. With major recognition at events like the Festival International de la Photographie de Mode in Cannes, her work now graces collections worldwide. For Cole, photography is not just a career; it is her lifeline, a medium that captivated and saved her by offering infinite paths of creative discovery.

Again, I am hopelessly attracted to the theme of water so when I stumbled upon her work I was captivated by how she captures not only the clarity of the water but also the subject as well. The movement of the water and the subject feels reminiscent of a painter smearing their hand over the canvas. Currently, she has a website showcasing lots of her work.

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Photographer research post 4

Zara Carpenter channels her experiences of physical and psychological pain into delicate yet haunting Polaroid self-portraits. Carpenter’s imagery, created during moments of intense physical discomfort, captures a fragile, almost spectral quality as layers of chemistry and color obscure parts of her figure, leaving traces of her body to emerge and dissolve within each frame. The artist embraces the imperfections and ephemeral qualities of analog Polaroids, treating each photograph as a canvas for her physical distress, imbuing the work with an intimacy and vulnerability rarely seen in traditional self-portraiture.

Carpenter employs a unique, cathartic approach, manipulating each Polaroid at the time of exposure by layering, damaging, and distressing the surface. This intentional disruption creates abstract, almost ghostly forms within the image, blurring the line between figurative and abstract expression. As Carpenter manipulates the image’s chemistry, her touch leaves behind traces that evoke the sensation of raw emotion and trauma, with fractured shapes and splashes of unexpected color symbolizing the healing potential within acts of destruction.

Her work is an exploration of memento mori and the transient nature of physical and emotional pain, balancing themes of control and surrender. Carpenter describes this process as both cathartic and healing, allowing her to confront and release past trauma into each photograph. These images capture her deeply personal journey toward understanding and acceptance of chronic illness, finding beauty within vulnerability and strength in the fragility of each Polaroid frame.

As a multidisciplinary artist based in Rochester, UK, Carpenter’s practice spans analog photography, printmaking, sculptural assemblages, and performance. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is included in prominent collections like The Wellcome Collection. Through Echoes, Carpenter transforms pain into visual poetry, revealing an intimate space where control and chance merge, capturing moments of peace and resilience within ephemeral, tactile works.

As discussed, her preferred medium is polaroid self-portraits, with layered and distressed analog photography techniques and size varying. I cannot describe how haunting and gorgeous these pieces are and I am once again floored by the creativity exhibited by each artist. There is something that feels almost painterly about her works, and I believe this is mostly because of the fragility of the picture itself. The texture of each image and the way parts of the images are practically crumbling to pieces in addition to the vibrant colors popping out on each picture distinctly reminds me of old classical paintings with perhaps a mix of something abstract. I can't help but be reminded that we as humans are fragile. If you are interested in examining more of her work, she does have a website that I will link below that showcases all of her most recent projects.

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Photography Research Post 3

In Yesterday We Were Girls, Katie Prock delves into the intertwining themes of memory, family history, and the shifting sense of identity within a context of girlhood and personal evolution. Prock’s approach marries traditional photography with hands-on techniques such as cutting, sewing, and object creation. Her personal history informs each piece, with images derived from her own family albums, recontextualized through collage and other manipulations to reveal the nuances of memory and the bittersweet contrast between past and present.

The project’s centerpiece, a sprawling, hand-sewn collage, acts as a family album reimagined: each page is presented simultaneously, allowing viewers to absorb the entirety of Prock’s complex relationship with her history. She crafts and deconstructs photographs of her mother and grandmothers, capturing the nuanced textures of their lives while expressing her own quest for identity beyond the roles she was raised to fulfill. Delicate porcelain objects, crafted to represent childhood treasures, appear alongside written fragments, giving voice to emotions that feel both deeply personal and universally relatable—loss, nostalgia, and a longing for belonging.

Prock’s integration of alternative printing techniques and handcrafted imperfections speaks to the nature of memory itself—fragile, selective, and beautifully flawed. Her exploration of feminine cycles, domesticity, and identity is intensified by an emotional layering of images and textures that invites viewers to not just see but feel the passage of time and the bittersweet reconciliation of past and future. This work bridges her family’s expectations with her own path, marking a new chapter as she reclaims her agency and builds an identity that honors her heritage while carving out a future untethered from it.

Prock’s personal narrative, including her departure from her Mennonite upbringing, highlights the emotional tensions between familial heritage and self-discovery. One standout piece is a portrait of her mother, captured through the kitchen window with an overlay of sky reflections, symbolizing dreams of freedom. The large-scale collage acts as a visual narrative, conveying the cultural expectations placed upon her and her journey toward self-determination. Through her craft, Prock seeks to balance her inherited memories with her own agency, resulting in an evocative exploration of intimacy, memory, and personal transformation.

Through Prock's work, I realize that photography doesn't necessarily have to be just a digital medium and can be also explored through a more tangible approach. As someone who often misses working hands-on with my projects, I found myself attracted to her approach and wondering how I might implement something similar, something uniquely me into potential upcoming projects. Additionally, I found myself relating to the themes of identity, girlhood, and memories, I feel like the themes that she chose as well as her chosen medium highlight a deeply relatable and emotional feeling we all get when we reimagine and re-experience our memories.

Currently, Prock does have an Instagram where she posts her work as well as a website that showcases more of her other projects. I think if you are looking for a more hands-on approach to photography, taking a thorough look over Prock's work might inspire your next piece.

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Photographer Research Post 2

In her series Amalgamations, Kat Moser presents ethereal photographs that intertwine the female form with elements of nature, evoking a sense of timelessness and connection to the human and natural world. Her pictures are created through a unique process of layering two or more images, blending a foundational photograph of the female form with landscapes or textures from various natural settings which allows for a beautiful and mysterious blend of colors and textures that enhance both images.

This often includes contrasts between luminous bodies of water or rugged terrains, such as rocky coastlines and weathered stone walls from rural chapels in France. Each piece within Amalgamations takes on a painterly, almost ethereal quality due to Moser’s use of a converted infrared camera, which imparts a dreamlike aura to her work. This technique encourages her to play around with themes of mythology and legends, capturing the strength and beauty of her subjects as integrated elements of the environment. Whether hazy and vague or sharp and undeniable, Moser aims to show the beauty of Mother Earth and the human form through her lens.

Moser's influences stem from several wonderful photographers including, Clarence John Laughlin, Deborah Turbeville, Sarah Moon, and Duane Michals. Additionally, she has refined her skills under the guidance of Joyce Tenneson, Doug Beasley, Elizabeth Opalenik, and Connie Imboden. With studios in Omaha, Nebraska, and Snow Mass, Colorado, Moser travels extensively, bringing landscapes from across the United States and abroad into her work, which has been widely exhibited and is held in private and corporate collections. Her photographs serve not only as visual art but as windows to “special places just beyond the shadows,” inviting viewers to ponder the deep, unseen worlds that link humanity to the mysteries of nature and the feminine form.

What attracts me to her pieces are those same dreamlike and hazy qualities that make her images feel unreal as well as the technique of layering her images over one another to bring out not only the forms of both images but the colors as well. I could not help but be reminded of Aphrodite and the bird of venus specifically seeing the images of the women layers over water. Additionally, I have always also found the quality of water be be significant to me spiritually and emotionally which is another reason why this photographer stood out to me. There are honestly no words to describe just how beautiful and emotional these works feel to me. There is currently no information regarding the size she prefers to work in he does seem to post often on her Facebook. I would highly recommend anyone curious to take a thorough deep dive into her work.

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For this week, I looked into the Photographer Alexis Martino. Alexis earned her BFA from Parsons school of design and then went on to study cinematography at the American Film University. From there she has opened workshops and courses across the globe teaching others about photography and cinematography. Alexis seems to be moved and inspired by themes that constantly demonstrate unique juxtapositions. The blend of reality and fiction, peace and unease, good and evil, private and intimate which in turns gives birth to images that take on an a story-like and fantastic quality. It was this type of visual narrative in her works that deeply intrigued me. As of currently, there are nine different photographical series including her current ongoing series titled "Collapsing Panorama" which can be found on her website. I found myself very attracted to both her Collapsing Panorama series and her Saving Souls given this strange magical and otherworldly feel from each piece.

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Hii my name is Imani! I’m a 2D Animation major with an interest in art, gaming and anime! I pretty much just draw on my free time! While I am just taking photography as a credit I hope I can pick something up about composition and narrative story telling through images!