~the light of the moon~

                 I still rise when the Earth erupts

         beneath my feet and I fall, 

when the oceans flood 

            into my hands, over

                                -whelming me 

            with salted figs and flask of wine,

                                          I can’t see it, can you? 

              sometimes when the sun and lake

become one, it feels like a cloud

         whispering in my ear

               I want to grab the moon,

                                            and invite 

                                   him to dinner

                          I wonder though,

        if eating with the light of the moon

                                      is perhaps

                                              less romantic

                                      than eating

                                under it?

                    not that it matters,

my eyes close in

               -voluntarily

                        whenever

                            I eat chocolate

                              and in here,

                        behind

           my eyes, where the moon

      cannot shine, 

I’m already

      singing

             to the river.

Local photographer, Angel O’Brien works in experimental and alternative processes to create the often surrealistic and many layered self-portrait montages for which she is well known. Her love of photography began in 1994 in high school when she spent many a day wandering Portland with her Cambo 5x7 shooting this city’s architecture, and even more evenings in her bathroom-turned-darkroom making black and white contact prints. Angel’s hands haven’t been far from a camera since, working with everything from 35mm to twin lens to pinhole to large format. Having always loved black and white, she mainly kept to monochrome, but at one point, she cross processed some slide film and fell in love with the off kilter colors she saw in her photographs and that she continues to use today. A few years ago, out of frustration with not being able to make the photographs that she had in her head, Angel began to experiment with photo transfers, creating a lot of crazy (and mostly bad) work.  She then learned platinum-palladium printing from Ray Bidegain and went to Montana and learned gum bichromate printing from Christina Z. Anderson, and finally, she had the tools she needed to be able to manifest the photography that she was only just realizing she’d always been trying to make. A solo trip to Prague and Budapest where she had the time and mental space was the final key to discovering how to turn her crazy life into the handmade platinum/gum {self}portraits that get her so much attention today.

www.5x7angel.com

find me on Instagram @angelobrienphotography