Josephine Cardin's background in dance comes through in her series of surreal self-portraits, many of which have digitally illustrated elements that take them into the realm of fantasy. With the series, Cardin explores the various identities one takes on in life, acting out emotions and frustrations in front of her camera. Moving gracefully in long, billowing gowns that amplify her movements, Cardin exposes her vulnerable side through body language and the careful inclusion of symbolic props.
Josephine Cardin’s background in dance comes through in her series of surreal self-portraits, many of which have digitally illustrated elements that take them into the realm of fantasy. With the series, Cardin explores the various identities one takes on in life, acting out emotions and frustrations in front of her camera. Moving gracefully in long, billowing gowns that amplify her movements, Cardin exposes her vulnerable side through body language and the careful inclusion of symbolic props.
In his clever photographs of landscapes, Paris based photographer Guillaume Amat visually explores the meaning of continuity. His recent and ongoing series titled “Open Fields” features images of empty scenes occupied by a fixed, centered mirror to give a window into all that is missing or, perhaps, all that is present. Amat's images are striking and profound, sincere in their depictions of reality yet simultaneously contrived. One gets a sense of seeing more deeply into the moment than a typical photograph can provide.
Brazilian-photographer Vitor Schietti uses fireworks to create images of illuminated trees and dancing patterns in his series "Impermanent Sculptures." To produce the images, the artist sets off fireworks at twilight. When the light is just right, Schietti uses a long exposure camera. The effect is semi-painterly and always captivating. The method comes from the artist's interest in the moment of change or transformation, as well as the sociological question of how microscopic elements reflect the greater, macroscopic world. To this effect, the trees ablaze represent dual destruction and illumination. Though people and governments take climate change under serious consideration, we continue to destroy our shared environment. The burning tree is an all-too common phenomena in an age of extreme weather and drought, but it is also an ancient symbol shared across cultures. Captured in a photograph by Schiette, the burning tree inspires ominous feelings of both awe and doom. 
“Mothmeister” is the moniker of the duo behind surreal, fantastical, and unsettling portraits of lonesome clowns and other creatures across varying backdrops. They call their fictional universe Wounderland, a place where the Instagram culture is reflected in drab, masked figures often accompanied by stuffed and mounted animals, a product of the two's fascination pf and collecting habits in taxidermy.
At first glance, Gregory Crewdson’s photographs are stills from eerie films with small American towns as backdrops. But these movies don’t actually exist. These tableaux, as Lynchian or Hitchcockian as they may seem, are single-frame narratives. Sometimes, the story is one of loneliness, even as multiple people share a room. Other times, there’s something more overly haunting and surreal at work, a moment of sustained horror that exists just after the climax of an arc.
