Victoria Miera: Susan Burnstine

Susan Burnstine's Website: http://www.susanburnstine.com

From the time Susan Burnstine was four years old to the present, she has suffered from frequent and severe nightmares. As a result, her photography has become a method of coping with these dreams. Everything about her work lends itself to the the idea that her images are in fact depictions of dreams - from the blurred edges and mysterious dark figures to her use of black and white, soft light, and movement. Many of Burnstine’s images are also shot from either high above or far away, with the focal point taking up only a small portion of the entire photograph, creating a feeling of isolation, detachment, and sometimes, insignificance. These things in combination with one another give the work as a whole a dark feeling of wonder at the world and its workings.

For this project, I wanted to keep the dream-like feeling of Burnstine’s work, but focus on the more wishful daydreams of youth rather than the more overtly dark side of the unconscious. Though these images are much lighter and perhaps less meaningful at first glance than Burnstine’s, I attempted to capture the fears that people transitioning from one stage of life to another often feel, but don’t express out loud. I wanted to portray the feeling of being small when put face to face with the concept of an unknown future and both the awe and fear of a world that is much larger and much different than we might have expected. To do this, I used both black and white and color schemes to convey the vividness and quiet darkness of this time period, as well as a mix of solitary figures and broad expanses, large elements and small, to portray the interaction of internal thoughts with the external world.

Overall, I attempted to express that things can be both a dream and a terror at once and that neither sense detracts from the other, but combines to make one unique perspective of the world.