TITLE: ALCHEMY

ALCHEMY is a series that explores the tension between pursuit and escape—the paradox at the heart of creation. Each photograph stands as a moment suspended between two forces: the impulse to chase something just beyond reach, and the compulsion to flee something that lingers too close behind. Making images, for me, is both an act of longing and evasion. I am searching for something—an emotion, a memory, a presence—but I am also running, often from the same things I seek to understand. The series doesn't offer a resolution. Instead, it lives in the restless space between desire and dread, between clarity and obscurity. What’s seen in the frame is only half the story; the rest is what remains elusive, just out of sight. These photographs are not answers. They are evidence of the chase. ALCHEMY is not about finding gold in the lead of the everyday. It is about standing in the quiet aftermath of that attempt, and recognizing that the transformation was always in the trying.

AUTHOR: Philip LoPresti (United States)