Valley (2017 - 2018)
Valley takes its name from the central gutter of a book: the recessed space of the inner spine where opposing pages meet and separate. By photographing directly into this narrow fold while tilting the pages together, Israel allows previously separate images to merge into unstable composite spaces.
The act of photographing the half-open book causes the perspectives of the original printed images to warp, collapse and shift, producing spatial relationships that seem to resist fixed orientation. Figures, interiors and landscapes fold into one another within the shadowed centre of the book.
Throughout the series, the book itself becomes both image source and optical device, shaping the image through the physical structure of the page.
© Jo Israel 2026