Lydia Anne McCarthy's 'Refraction' At Daniel Cooney Fine Art In New York City (PHOTOS)

Photographer Lydia Anne McCarthy's new show, Refraction, at Daniel Cooney Fine Art is "a series of portraits made with refracted light, the highlights rendered as spectrum and the shadow areas as undefined lines and shapes." McCarthy took the photos with a self-constructed camera where the lens was replaced with a Fresnel, or magnifying sheet. The show consists of six large scale images of ethereal portraits.

The faces of the subjects are mostly obscured by McCarthy's technique, but the angles and light refractions give a mood that clues the viewer in to who they are, or who they might be. McCarthy's Refraction shows she's interested in how the camera itself can be manipulated in order to get a new kind of image, rather than relying on work in photoshop. Her photograph "Antonia" has a lovely contemplative quality to it; McCarthy captures her model mid-thought and the image seems candid rather than posed.

Refraction is at Daniel Cooney Fine Art, 511 West 25th Street, #506 New York, NY until July 29th.