Every photograph tells a story. When part of a body of work, the photograph takes on new meaning, becoming part of a bigger and more complete narrative. A portfolio allows the photographer to explore the complexities of their subject, and provide context that gives it richness and meaning that is more than the sum of its parts. Panopticon Gallery is pleased to announce “First Look 2022,” our annual juried portfolio showcase, where five portfolios have been selected for exhibition on view from February through March 2022.

First Look 2022: A Second Glance, the online companion to First Look 2022, can be viewed here

Bamby, The Empty nester

“ “The Empty Nester” explores the fictional story of Berty: a woman of a certain age struggling to understand her value outside of the confines of domestic life in 1950’s Suburbia. Living in a decade enthralled with youth culture and a burgeoning baby boom, Berty questions her identity and purpose beyond her expected roles of wife and mother. Each of these hyper-stylized tableaus depict a woman confronted with the complicated notions of age, beauty, love, and belonging in her mid-life search for self. Drawing influence from the post-war "women’s pictures" of film director Douglas Sirk, "The Empty Nester" employs a similar visual language to depict the melancholia of domestic life in vivid technicolor. Much like the female characters of Sirk’s grand melodramas, Berty’s world appears idyllic, however just below the surface we find a woman’s life teeming with disquiet." -Bamby

Miranda Schmitz, Black Waves

“ ‘Black Waves’ is an expressionistic and metaphorical project that explores the dark depths of grief. It’s a based on the true story of a friend of mine, who lost her 19 year old daughter Eva to suicide on a holiday with her boyfriend in France in 2012. The series is a personal visual interpretation of the 7 diaries full of grief that I received from the mother of Eva.

In this project, I use nature as a poetic tool to narrate a personal story. I visualize the harsh and unknown landscape of mourning. I materialize the nature of sadness and loss. I show her intense desire to reverse the cruel truth by adding some negative prints to the story. The title ‘Black Waves’ refers to the negative moods of Eva which led to the irreversible act of stepping out of life. But also to the tide of grief that characterizes the life of the family she left behind.

Like Murakami wrote: ’Memories are what warm you up from the inside, but they’re also what tear you apart’. Grief comes in waves, in paroxysms, in sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees, blind the eyes and obliterate the daily life.” - Miranda Schmitz

Diane Hemingway, Impossible Diamonds

“When I was young, I wanted nothing more than to fit in. Eager to please, I coloured within the lines. For my brother, conformity was for the birds. I wanted him to be normal like me; he wanted me to be normal like him. However, our differences dissolved in the natural world, a transcendent place where everyone can be themselves.

During this tumultuous time, I am overwhelmed by my desire to escape back into the imaginary world of my youth. Searching for what seemed like impossible joy, I rediscovered a box of my father's old scientific teaching props: prisms, mirrors, lasers, as well as old journals and postcards. Using these optical elements as a portal, I spent the second year of the pandemic trying to make something magical happen in my own backyard.

This project is a sensory trip into the natural world, offering mystery, magic, and healing. My process allows me to see places I know by heart through a new lens. Letting go of the notion of trying to please everybody, I use optical elements in conjunction with my traditional camera to create non-traditional photographs. In doing so, I question the camera's relationship to one’s objective reality by creating images that reveal the hidden places of my inner world. Impossible Diamonds challenges the notion of normalcy, both in a photographic image and in our strange times” -Diane Hemingway

Laurie Swope, Before Self-Consciousness

“As a photographer, I had always dreaded the self-consciousness that comes with adolescence. One of my greatest joys was to watch my two sons passionately explore their world and realize their intrinsic goals–tasting fresh snow or feeling like a superhero or touching a salamander–without the constraints of self-consciousness or the pressures of expected behavior. Once they became more self-aware- and I can see the beginning traces in these photographs- I came to understand just how free they had been. This ephemeral freedom makes me wonder about my own extrinsic motivations and convoluted goals. Are my decisions dictated by what I think other people think? How much does self-consciousness dull the enjoyment of my daily life, control my ambitions and manipulate my sense of what is right and what is wrong? We are all touched by innocent and sentimental images of childhood, but these images also remind me of lost freedoms- and the resulting conformity in which so many of us have become entrenched.” - Laurie Swope

Allison Plass, Hold me tight

“In my series Hold Me Tight, I explore moments of vulnerability and intimacy between my husband and two teenage sons, often while on family vacations in nature. A kind of sensory aliveness takes hold and I see their changing bodies, in adolescence and midlife, register so much feeling. The sculptural quality of their forms reminds me of early ideas of classical beauty, and the stories and struggles of manhood in Ancient Greek myth. Their physical interactions too, distilled in a photograph, reveal heightened tensions of closeness that are familiar scenes throughout the history of Western Art, yet speak to a resonance I might not otherwise see in daily life, or in contemporary representations of male relationships. Inspired by art history, psychology, and Greek myth, I explore the question of whether there exists an inherently masculine experience that deepens the mystery of what I observe, and reflect on the biases of our own cultural moment of narrowly defined readings of manhood. And standing just outside their intimate circle, I recognize myself in these moments, both the masculine and feminine in each of us, at times indistinguishable, by holding up these tensions in the light.” -Allison Plass