As a photographic artist, I am intrigued by the natural world; its duality of timelessness and ephemerality. There is a mystery in the fleeting moments, caught out of the corner of your eye. Whether we see or not, leaves reach for the sun, vines overtake a tree, bees pollinate, the fallen decay.  Nature’s elemental cycles continue. I seek to capture the fleeting and forever. 

 

I am drawn to the 19th century hand printing photographic processes, utilizing today’s technology to take photos and create negatives and century’s old gum dichromate printing to create photo-based images. With this alternative photographic process, watercolor, gum arabic and a photosensitive dichromate solution is brushed on to watercolor paper and exposed to light using digital negatives. The process is slow, serendipitous, heartbreaking and joyous. While it provides opportunities for creative possibilities, ultimately the resulting image has a life of its own. 

 

Sheri Rhodes fell in love with photography and alternative processes when she built her first pinhole camera in college. After raising two children, working in advertising, volunteering for a number of non-profits, she has turned her focus to creative endeavors. She has made Great Falls, Virginia her forever home after 25 years of living in different areas of the US, Canada and Thailand.