Susan Weiss is a photographer and filmmaker whose work begins with looking closely-at people, objects, rituals, and the things we desire.

Working across photography, film, and artist books, I am drawn to stories that reveal themselves slowly. My projects explore identity, beauty, obsession, resilience, labor, and our complicated relationships with one another and the natural world.

The camera is both witness and participant in my work. I am interested in what happens when repeated observation begins to transform its subject— and when the familiar becomes strange.

The photographs shown here are from If You Can Want, You Can Need, an ongoing exploration of desire and the elusive black tulip, photographed with multiple Polaroid cameras and films. In nature, the black tulip does not truly exist. Through photography, it finally does.

Look closely.