Ethereal updates from photographer Delaney Allen show jazzily dressed beings and alien landscapes

It’s been three years since we featured Portland-based photographer Delaney Allen on the site, and boy has his work cranked up a level in the meantime. From purple mists eerily rolling down a river bed of autumnal shrubbery to spume frothing like cream, Delaney’s shots merge natural settings, dusky lighting and post-production tricks to create otherworldly landscapes. In new series Artifact Delaney has experimented with a more narrative approach, using his tactile environments as backdrops to fictitious anthological studies of alien beings (often self-portraits in elaborate costumes), with mysterious symbols sprinkled throughout. The series is a nod to the historical use of photography to document people, exploitatively or not, but instead the lens is turned to the fantasy landscape of his own imagination.

Artifact also uses green screen and collage to complement natural landscapes with sets built in the studio using outlandish prints and props. Shooting landscapes at dusk or nightfall with a flash allowed Delaney to create an ideal canvas for post-production. Here colour was integral to the seamless integration of these two environments and creating a believable alien world. “While assembling the characters in post in the studio setting, I carefully tabbed colours to further strengthen the overall image,” he explains. “The studio portrait photographs were manufactured to either push colours not typically found in nature or pull from the palettes found within the landscape photography within the series.” The result is a disorientating and bewitching series that showcases Delaney’s skill as a landscape, portrait and still life photographer.