David Maisel Studio Information

I have spent several decades working on aerial photography projects that examine environmentally-impacted sites, seeking to render these zones in both a documentary and metaphorical way. The chapters in this ongoing endeavor include "The Lake Project," "Terminal Mirage," "The Mining Project," and Oblivion. More recently, I've become involved in photographing copper canisters that contain the cremated ashes of patients from a psychiatric hospital. The canisters are reacting with their human ash contents, forming complex mineral encrustations on the surfaces of the cans. In all my work, I seek to photograph that which has been previously invisible or secret, and to describe the essential properties of the photographic medium by focusing on subjects in which minerals, water, and dust take on new forms.