Swing Time by Allen Bryan

Today you will stop to experience the Comforts of Home. I reviewed Allen Bryan’s exceptional collage photographs while judging entries in Photolucida’s Critical Mass competition last fall. In his artist’s statement about the series, Allen explains the images are, “…disquieting panoramas to examine the belongings of the phantom occupant who may return at any moment.” When I spoke with Allen last week, he called himself an emerging photographer, but clearly he has mastered the art on many levels. He told me he now looks for empty spaces and furniture to shoot, without anything in mind until he begins to compile his rooms, never knowing where he is going to end up.

There are currently eighteen images in the series, and Swing Time is one of my favorites. There is the perfect balance and blur on the child swinging and the hand reaching in to the bowl. The large piece of plywood lines up with the swing as though it is a slide into the room with a mattress landing. I could certainly go on! Here is the link to see the Comforts of Home series. Which rooms do you like, and why?