Michael Philip Manheim
Canopy 31 (Untitled), from the Under Nature's Canopy series, 1993, carbon pigment print, 16" x 24"
By layering different phases of motion onto a single frame of film, I feel that I am photographing an inner world. In connecting with nature, my subjects seem to have connected with their psyches as well. Just as prehistoric peoples drew or sculpted their demons in order to confront them, my participants seek out their own monsters. The results are worlds apart from their actual appearances, and the experience has been described as cathartic. I have learned how to find the settings, how to coax out the feelings, and how to build in elements of chance. In going to intuition in this manner, we seem to call out the creatures.
It's not all monsters, although more than one subject has appreciated that release. There are imps, elves and other transformations that occur spontaneously, without premeditation or makeup, as each set of images enters the camera under nature's canopy.
