Illuminatory Imaginism: Finding a Way Back Into Photography
For a long time, photography and art existed as two separate worlds for me.
Photography was about the outside — light, place, surface, atmosphere.
Art was about the inside — imagination, symbols, things that didn’t quite belong to reality.
Somewhere along the way, those worlds drifted apart. Photography began to feel limited by what was already there, while painting and imagination felt increasingly disconnected from the tangible world. I didn’t lose interest in photography — I lost interest in photographing only what exists.
Illuminatory Imaginism emerged from that tension.
It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t theoretical. It came from trying to reconcile two instincts I already had: the eye of a photographer and the mind of an artist.
What Illuminatory Imaginism Is
At its simplest, Illuminatory Imaginism is about creating photographic realities from inner vision.
Instead of pointing a camera outward, I begin with imagery that comes from imagination — sometimes expressed as a painting, sometimes as a mental image, sometimes as something half-seen and hard to describe. These images are often strange, symbolic, or uncanny — not because they’re trying to shock, but because imagination doesn’t obey realism.
Using AI as a medium — not as an author — those visionary images are then transformed into scenes that look photographic, even though they never existed in the real world.
The result isn’t painting.
It isn’t photography in the traditional sense either.
It’s a form of unreal photography — images that feel documented, atmospheric, and grounded, yet depict impossible situations.
Why AI Matters Here (and Why It Isn’t the Point)
AI isn’t used to automate creativity or to “generate content.”
It functions more like alchemy.
Once an image enters that space, it mutates. It shifts. It resists control. Sometimes it closely resembles the original vision. Sometimes it drifts far away. Both outcomes are valid.
There are no fixed rules. No correct results.
The artist’s role is not to force an image into submission, but to recognise when something holds. When an image carries tension, atmosphere, or meaning — especially when it doesn’t fully resolve.
Anomalies aren’t mistakes here. They’re often the reason the image works.
Why This Matters to Me
As someone who has lived between photography and art, this process feels like a reunion.
It allows me to:
keep the realism, lighting, and atmosphere I love about photography
while giving space to imagination, symbolism, and inner vision
without one cancelling the other out
It’s also a way of resisting a culture that demands clarity, certainty, and instant legibility. These images sit in a liminal space — between believable and impossible — and ask the viewer to stay there a little longer.
Not to decode.
Not to solve.
Just to look.
Purpose, Not Movement
Illuminatory Imaginism isn’t a movement or a system. It doesn’t claim authority or truth.
It’s a way of working.
A way of allowing imagination to take visible form without abandoning realism. A way of creating images that feel realwithout being tied to the world as it already exists.
For me, it has made photography feel alive again — not by returning to the camera, but by expanding what photography can be.