Before moving to her current home of Los Angeles, photographer Paloma Dooley lived in the Hudson Valley for about seven years. “Plain Sight” is an attempt to mine the detail of the landscape around her in search of hidden magic.
"When I photograph I often find myself in awe of these places that seem at once wholly ordinary and wholly exceptional. They fill me with wonder; they make me glad that they exist, as if ready to be found and wanting to be seen. I am attracted to their beauty and their oddness. Each place seems to be so rich with detail that it is a whole world unto itself, a microcosm to be magnified. I want each viewer to be able to step into my shoes, see what I saw, and inhabit the small worlds one by one.
It is always a good idea to stop and look.It is photography and the act of seeing that transform things that look odd or exceptional in the world into things that look fantastical in photographs. To the eye of the 8x10, the whole world is sculpture described by light, and detail is permanent. At the heart of my visual fascination is my love for photography’s dual powers of representation and transformation. I want the images to feel as true as they are uncanny, as hyper-real as they are unbelievable." — Paloma Dooley