The series, Surrounds, explores the objecthood of the photographic backdrop, a prevalently used trades-tool of mainstream photography studios. Visually transporting sitters into idealized landscapes and utopian worlds, these backdrops pure purpose is to act as a false contextual space. The imagery of these backdrops creates an effective sense of perspective, while portraying epic natural surroundings that appear as residual visual artifacts from 19th Century photographic sublime. In this series, the photographic backdrop is depicted as something that it was never meant to be, a subject. By manipulating the backdrop physically and portraying it as a three dimensional, altered image, I am transforming the space it portrays, while simultaneously changing the nature of the object.
These sculptural objects with hints of recognizable, yet skewed landscape, are then altered further to speak to the transformation of photography by technology. By incorporating hints of photographic studio equipment and digital aesthetic fads, I visually exam the photographic process associated with the use of backdrops as well as the aging medium of digital post production. Repetitive, often low resolution imagery references the grid preference computer monitor background options and image editing software visualizations, like Photoshop layers are used to suggest the new standard of editing photography. Working together, the digital manipulations paired with the physical distortions of the backdrops, change the way in which individuals relate to the backdrop and examine the materiality of digital photography.
