Glancing Backward by Kalee Appleton

Issue 124

This work explores the objecthood of the photographic backdrop, a prevalently used trades-tool of mainstream photography studios as well as challenges the tradition of the photographic print. 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 and exist today as archetype depiction of the land. In this series, the photographic backdrop is depicted as something that it was never meant to be, a subject. By manipulating the backdrop it is transforming the space it portrays, while simultaneously changing the nature of the object. The shape and size of the pieces in this series challenge the notion of traditional fine art photography by changing the traditionally square/rectangle format of the classic photographic frame.

Kalee Appleton lives and works in Dallas, Texas.
To view more of Kalee’s work, please visit her website.