Emily Beresford

Emily Beresford is a photographer based in Connecticut. She recently graduated from Bard College with a BA in photography. In her photographs, Beresford attempts to evoke a heightened sense of time passing, while possessing the stillness of a moment. Inspired by Dutch and Danish painting, especially still life and portraiture, she infuses her photographs with subtle narratives, using light as the driving force. She is interested in the movement of time and how it changes the people and landscapes in her photographs.

Clement. November, 2017.

Pears on the kitchen table. September, 2017.

Self-portrait. March, 2018.

the hour of the wolf

“The hour between night and dawn. The hour when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fears, when ghost and demons are most powerful, the hour of the wolf is also the hour when most children are born.” – Ingmar Bergman

In these photographs, I try to capture the sense of time moving and changing. I am interested in the way that light can change the way we see something. We are made vulnerable by what light reveals.

The photographs are about a specific time of day as well as time passing over a year. The interweaving of faces and landscapes reveals this progression of time during the days, the seasons, and the years through which each person has lived.

With time, light moves across and changes the landscape. It creeps into corners and moves in and out of rooms, rests on the figure’s cheek, glints off of jewelry, and falls on to hair. It appears as if the light falls onto the figures, or that it might come from them. There is a beauty in the way it rests on faces, defining their wrinkles and the curve of their mouths.

Between dusk and dawn, light descends into and then emerges from darkness.

It is still and quiet. We are alone.

I am held in this place of emerging light and a place of solitude.

Pear left in the sun. September, 2017.