Drew Doggett, “The Calling,” from “Reverie.” Courtesy of Drew Doggett.
For the past 15 years, photographer Drew Doggett has traveled the world in search of extraordinary landscapes, wildlife, and cultures. Now, he is taking a different approach. In his two new series, Reverie and Shape of Dreams, Doggett creates surreal worlds of his own, blurring the boundary between photography and imagination.
Doggett began his career in fashion photography before a transformative trip to the Himalayas led him toward fine art imagery. Although his subjects changed, elements of fashion remained central to his practice, particularly his attention to composition, texture, and form. These influences come to the forefront in his latest work.
In Reverie, cloaked figures and horses travel through the seemingly endless landscape of the Sahara. The black-and-white photographs strip away many markers of time and place, allowing each scene to feel like a fragment from a story yet to be told.
“The desert is an ideal canvas,” Doggett says. “It strips away distraction until only light, form, silence, and endless possibility remain.”
Images such as Voyage show a lone rider racing across rolling dunes, while Homeward captures two figures traveling through the immense landscape. Rather than documenting the Sahara as he found it, Doggett uses the desert as a stage, carefully constructing scenes that leave their meaning open to the viewer. A companion short film takes this idea even further, exploring both the series and the creative process behind it.
While Reverie looks outward across an expansive landscape, Shape of Dreams turns inward. Here, Doggett trades the monochrome desert for warm washes of pink, peach, and blue. A solitary figure draped entirely in white moves through minimal architectural spaces, appearing at once present and anonymous.
The photographs intentionally avoid references to a particular person or place. Instead, the figure becomes a vessel for memory and imagination. In Threshold, the draped form sits beneath a series of arches, while Echoes Within places it at the end of a passageway bathed in shades of pink and violet. “These images are inspired by painting's ability to ask nothing of us but, instead, to give us a way of seeing,” Doggett explains.
Although visually distinct, the two series share a sense of ambiguity. Horses and riders become small figures within the vast Sahara, while the anonymous subject of Shape of Dreams seems to merge with the surrounding architecture. Rather than providing a complete narrative, Doggett leaves space for the viewer to imagine what might have happened before or after each photograph.
With Reverie and Shape of Dreams, Doggett moves beyond finding extraordinary places and toward creating worlds that exist somewhere between reality and a dream.
For the past 15 years, photographer Drew Doggett has traveled the world in search of extraordinary landscapes, wildlife, and cultures.
Drew Doggett, “Awakening,” from “Reverie.” Courtesy of Drew Doggett.
Drew Doggett, “Beyond,” from “Reverie.” Courtesy of Drew Doggett.
In his two new series, Reverie and Shape of Dreams, Doggett creates surreal worlds of his own.
Drew Doggett, “Threshold,” from “Shape of Dreams.” Courtesy of Drew Doggett.
Drew Doggett, “Confluence,” from “Shape of Dreams.” Courtesy of Drew Doggett.
“The desert is an ideal canvas,” Doggett says. “It strips away distraction until only light, form, silence, and endless possibility remain.”
Drew Doggett, “Nomads,” from “Reverie.” Courtesy of Drew Doggett.
Drew Doggett, “Echo,” from “Reverie.” Courtesy of Drew Doggett.
Although visually distinct, the two series share a sense of ambiguity, a sense that the figures could be anyone.
Drew Doggett, “Revelation,” from “Shape of Dreams.” Courtesy of Drew Doggett.
Drew Doggett, “Avalon,” from “Reverie.” Courtesy of Drew Doggett.
