Artist Statement
WITHIN SHADOWS: This body of work explores the fleeting moments between dreaming and waking – the blurred seconds in which imagination and reality collide.
ABSENCE OF BEING: This ongoing series explores how the past remains with us, if only in shadows. These images capture fleeting memories, spotted from the corner of an eye that vanish the moment we turn to really look. And yet they remain, for the imprint remains with us. We are living in the present, but the past reminds us that it is part of us, too, as is the future, and we of them.
Process Statement
These images are shot on film with homemade medium format cameras and homemade lenses, primarily made out of plastic, vintage camera parts and random household objects, with single-element lenses molded from plastic and rubber. Effects are created entirely IN-camera. No photoshop post-processing techniques are used to achieve effects.
Susan Burnstine is an award winning fine art and commercial photographer originally from Chicago now based in Los Angeles. Susan is represented in galleries across the world, widely published throughout the globe and has also written for several photography magazines, including a monthly column for Black & White Photography (UK).
Susan's first monograph, Within Shadows, was published by CHARTA EDITIONS. Within Shadows earned the Gold award for PX3 Prix De La Photographie Paris in the Professional Fine Art Books category and a Bronze overall and was selected for the 2011 Photo Eye Booklist.
Susan portrays her dream-like visions entirely in-camera, rather than with post-processing manipulations. To achieve this, she created twenty-one hand-made film cameras and lenses that are frequently unpredictable and technically challenging. The cameras are primarily made out of plastic, vintage camera parts and random household objects and the single element lenses are molded out of plastic and rubber. Learning to overcome their extensive limitations has her to rely on instinct and intuition... the same tools that are key when trusting in the unseen.
How to use our image viewer
Click on any of the thumbnail images to launch the viewer. You can then navigate forward and backward within the portfolio by clicking the left or right side of the enlarged image. Click the add to collection checkbox to automatically add an image to your collection. Image tags or search engine keywords appear below the collections' checkbox and each word or phrase is a link to potentially more image matches.
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