Artist’s Statement: I have become interested in how my work in photography and writing might enter into a dialogue.The Image: Periphery series offers an opportunity to explore this creative possibility at the junction of image, sound and text.

Each piece begins with a medium format film photograph. The lo-fidelity aesthetic of the image explores my interest in atmospheres created through the optical conditions of plastic lens cameras. Soft focus, lens distortion, light leaks, vignetting — each of these traditional imperfections play a role in creating a visual environment that inhabits an alpha brain wave world of suggested daydreams, intuitions and memory. The micro-essay/poem element is a reflection on the photograph, but more importantly, of the environment surrounding the subject as heard and recollected in the field recording.

In the coalescence of these separate media elements, I hope to further my investigations of memory and how the act of image-making and textual storytelling engenders a sense of identity. Or in other words — how what we create, in turn, creates us.

— Philip Arnold