rachel brace-stille

What is intimacy? It has been a difficult question for me to define for myself, but as I took images, it started to clarify into a sense of pause in life: the quiet time, the in-between that could be brief moments of solitude or moments shared, but which lead to a sense of self and security even when alone in the dark—because in those times we feel the connection to the larger world. 

Some of these images were my effort to try to approach photography in a different way, to open me up to creating images outside my comfort level. Using a pinhole camera and Polaroid Type 55 film, I didn’t always create the images that I had either envisioned or wanted to get. I experimented with objects that had deep personal meaning, hoping they would bring out something less tangible: a memory, a feeling of history.

In all the images—of myself, my grandmother, my husband, objects from my past, places that have meaning—I’m looking to express that larger connection that starts with self and sometimes ends with solitude.