My Faded Fantasy by Matthew Finley

Issue 105

Using a historic photography process to romanticize the lyrical uncertainty of love.

These images are the equivalents of daydreams—reveries suffused with hope and yearning, desire and loneliness. The floral photographic layers on glass evoke the trance of memory—fluid images at once solid yet unclear, ideal but mysterious. These romantic fantasies are moments that can become lost and leave us solitary just as easily as they can solidify into tangible experience.

In using the wet plate collodion process, I aim to add a sense of humanity—an individual, handmade and flawed quality to the images. Layering the glass plate images in the frame creates depth and a multi-dimensional, sculptural aspect that requires the viewer to peer inside, and also allows the shadows of each layer to play a part on the ones below. These mercurial qualities reinforce just how unpredictable and elusive one’s fantasies and desires can be.

Matthew Finley lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
To view more of Matthew's work, please visit his website.