Editor’s Pick: Blinded by the Light

Dark and ethereal: two words you don’t see together very often, but they come to mind synchronously when you look at Gabriel Isak’s work. Then again, conflicting concepts are at the core of what he creates. The Swedish born, San Francisco-based artist taps into photography to illustrate some of the profound experiences he’s encountered in the past (the years he battled depression, namely).

Though he dabbled with photography at a young age, Isak picked it back up in earnest last year to create work inspired by these difficult years. “I wanted to depict the internal world of solitary people who symbolize our own unconscious states,” Isak says.

This photo, called “Beneath,” represents blindness, he explains, “of not being able to see what is in front of one’s journey and being imprisoned in a dark place.” The photo, featuring frequent muse Joep Polderman, is dreamy, surreal even, but Isak still kept the execution remarkably simple, relying solely on a beam of sunlight streaming through his apartment window.

“I set up a black backdrop on the floor, which she laid down on,” he explains. “Then I covered her in the lace fabric. There was a big light stream reflected on the floor from the sun through the window, and I lined up and taped a few papers on the window to block part of the light and to get this light stream.” He aimed his Canon 5D Mark III from above Polderman downward, firing at 1/400 of a second at f/1.8 and ISO 100.

Isak’s work is rooted in complexity and darkness, but what blooms is surprising: a revitalized afterglow.