Laura Barth’s photographic practice is an urgent response to the pressures of twenty-first-century womanhood and motherhood—an alchemical process that merges art and science. Her foundational series, “Mythos and Manna,” transforms digital memories and personal upheaval into layered, mythic images through Polaroid emulsion lifts and handwork, blurring the boundaries between memory, artifact, and healing.

San Diego-based artist Annie Claflin uses photography to navigate identity, mental health, and memory. In this interview, she discusses her series Undertow, which explores the fragile boundary between land and sea through altered pigment prints and distressed photo-objects. By submerging, warping, and weathering images of the San Diego coast, Claflin evokes the erosion of memory, place, and self in the face of sea level rise.

The amazing instant gratification of Polaroid film predates our digital lives and yet lives on in the hearts and souls of artists from around the globe. See 20 Instant Film Photographers You Need to Know, a specially curated collection by the Instant Film Society!