All images by Cheyenne Beverley. Used with permission.
If you’ve been into portrait photography, you must have noticed that the film-inspired aesthetic has been pretty popular in the recent years. What started out as a nostalgia for the unique visual qualities of the 1970’s and 1980’s have become a go-to look. The works of emotive and experimental photographers like Brooklyn-based Cheyenne Beverley are great examples of why today’s creative culture thrives on looking at the past.
Nostalgia is a visual style that today’s photographers have been embracing for a myriad of projects, but has become most especially fascinating and popular in portrait photography. There’s something inherently attention-grabbing about the way everything is set up to look like from another time. We’ve seen it in Elizaveta Porodina’s retro-inspired fashion editorials and campaigns, and Elena Iv-skaya’s retro-styled swimmers series. Cheyenne’s Chrononaut, is the latest series to join our favorites of these moody, nostalgic portraits.
“I’ve spent a lot of my time as a kid digging through boxes in attics looking at old photos. The texture and colors would pull me in and I’d be up there for hours letting my imagination run wild,” she said of her aptly named collection. “I like daydreaming about who we’d be if we were born at a different time. Past or future. Time is such a slippery line. My goal from the Chrononaut series is for you to not know when the photo was taken.”
Looking at all the photos, she has indeed succeeded in making us feel that these photos were taken from decades past. From the styling, the setting, the lighting, and the post-processing, she nailed the youthful and wistful retro aesthetic down to the tiny details.
Well, what can else can we say but this look is timeless, and Cheyenne has certainly done a great job as a Chrononaut with her visual time travels.
Check out Cheyenne Beverley’s website to see more of Chrononaut and her other projects.
