On Waking Dreams

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
 
Carl Jung

This series explores that fleeting moment between dreaming and waking--the blurred seconds in which imagination and reality collide.
 
I often recall images and am uncertain whether they came from something experienced in reality or dreams. Images symbolic of transitions and transformations of the spirit, be it human, animal or from the natural world, are of particular interest and significance to me.
 
With this series, I wanted to find a way to portray these types of dream-like visions, but entirely in-camera, rather than with post-processing manipulations. To achieve this, I created twenty hand-made cameras and lenses that are frequently unpredictable. Learning to overcome their extensive limitations has required me to rely on instinct and intuition—the same tools key for attempting to interpret dreams.
 
Between

"Between the conception
 
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
 
Falls the Shadow."
 
T.S. Eliot

The circle ends. And begins again. And the time past is filled with elements in opposition, juxtaposed as one.
 
Memory. And certainty.
Hopes. And disappointment.
Desire. And loss.
 
We’re in an endless state of living and dying. This series explores the fleeting shadows of twilight time, the faint seconds between now and then that float just above reality.
 
These images are created entirely in-camera, rather than with post processing manipulations. To achieve this, I built twenty hand-made cameras and lenses that are frequently unpredictable and technically challenging due to their extensive limitations. These cameras are instinctual, mysterious and ambiguous in nature.
 
Just as in life, these images reveal that things are never as simple as black and white. What matters is what lies between.
 
Susan Burnstine (March 2008)