Susan Burnstine portrays her dream-like visions entirely in-camera, rather than with post-processing digital manipulations. To achieve this, she has created twenty-four handmade film cameras and lenses that are frequently unpredictable and technically challenging. The cameras are primarily made out of plastic, vintage camera parts, and random household objects, with single-element lenses molded from plastic and rubber. Learning to overcome their extensive optical limitations requires her to rely on instinct and intuition—the same tools that are key when trusting the unseen.

Susan is originally from Chicago and is now based in Los Angeles. She is represented in galleries across the world, widely published across the globe and has also written for several photography magazines, including a monthly column for Black + White Photography Magazine (UK). She has had over 35 solo exhibits internationally, her work is held in numerous museum and private collections, and she has had two award winning monographs, Within Shadows (Charta, 2011) and Absence of Being (Damiani Editore, 2016).