Ben De Vries

For me, photography is a way to connect the familiar and the unfamiliar. It's an attempt to transform objects, people, and places into something that feels both recognizable and unfamiliar. My images are a fusion of the realistic and the surreal, using playful manipulations of light, shadow, and composition to create moments of stillness that can be simultaneously dreamlike and unsettling.

In my work, I search for those fleeting moments where the line between dream and reality blurs. A hallway in a house that seems to multiply, a window that returns the world in alienating colors, or an object that seems to defy the laws of gravity. These images are not only a representation of the world as we see it, but also explorations of our desires, concerns, and the unconscious.

By experimenting with my camera, with light and colors, I try to create a sense of alienation, like a dream you can't fully understand, but which you suspect might tell you something important. The environment becomes a space of shifting meanings, where the ordinary blends with the bizarre and the poetic.

My photography is a play between the familiar and the strange. These are moments that capture both the beauty of the fleeting and the secrets of the subconscious. The images I create are not merely a representation of the world we see, but also an invitation to escape to another, dreamlike dimension. Because in capturing reality, I precisely try to capture the elusive dream that lies within.