Susan Derges is a contemporary British photographer known for her experimental creation of photos without a traditional camera. Using the night landscape as her makeshift darkroom, Derges submerges large sheets of photographic paper in rivers, using a flashlight and the moon to create the exposure. The images created of plants, organisms, and flowing water are metaphorically rich, alluding to the connections between ourselves and the natural world. “I wanted to visualize the idea of a threshold where one would be on the edge of two interconnected worlds: one, an internal, imaginative or contemplative space and the other, an external, dynamic, magical world of nature,” the artist’s said. “I am interested in how the two interact, how they project onto or into each other and destabilize the ideas we normally have of ourselves and the surrounding environment.” Born in 1955 in London, United Kingdom, Derges studied painting at both the Chelsea School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art. A recipient of the Rotary Foundation Award, Derges lived in Japan for six years, carrying out her postgraduate studies at Tsukuba University. After returning to the United Kingdom, she began experimenting with abstraction in photography. The artist currently lives and works in Devon, United Kingdom. Her works are included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Hara Art Museum in Tokyo.