Willa Nasatir, Introduction

Narrator: Hi! In these galleries, we’ll look at some photographs taken by Willa Nasatir. To make these images, she began by making found objects into improvised sculptures. She’d photograph these, then use a variety of techniques to cast light and shadow on those images.  Then she would photograph them again.

Willa Nasatir: I'm interested more in these sort of invented and absurd material choices than I am doing it on a computer. 

I think that there's endless possibility to digital manipulation, but I think there's also endless possibility to taking a picture of something, and getting an effect that you haven't seen before or you can't quite place. I think our eye is trained to recognize things as digital, but to me it's actually easier to make something using more of my hand than it is using Photoshop, just because I am less proficient in it. I don't have strong conviction to that dark room photography at all, but I do feel best about the work that I make that most involves my own hand.

I also like the element of chance that happens when you're experimenting with these processes.