Light Dreams invites artists to explore light not only as a physical phenomenon, but as an internal, psychological, and symbolic presence. The pairing of light and dreams suggests a space where conscious perception and subconscious experience overlap—where memory, imagination, and emotion shape how light is seen, felt, and interpreted.

In dreams, light often behaves differently than it does in waking life. It may glow without a visible source, shift color unexpectedly, or illuminate only fragments of a scene while leaving others in darkness. This opens space for photographic approaches that emphasize ambiguity, softness, distortion, or selective visibility. Dreams often reshape reality through exaggeration, compression, or symbolism. Translating this into photographic practice could mean using light to bend time, alter scale, or collapse narrative. Long exposures, alternative or historical processes, or unconventional lighting techniques can reinforce a sense of temporal dislocation—images that feel as though they exist outside linear time.  In this context, light is not simply descriptive; it becomes a narrative force, shaping meaning rather than documenting fact. Light can become unstable, fleeting, or uncanny—mirroring the way dreams resist logical structure and clear resolution. 

This call is open to all forms of alternative or historical processes. All submitted works must be created and printed by the hand of the artist, including- but not limited to: silver gelatin; platinum/palladium; albumen; cyanotype; gum bichromate; wet-plate collodion; photo gravure; carbon; vandyke brown; traditional printmaking; instant transfers and lifts,  hand-manipulated (altered surface) digital prints, and other alternative and historic printing processes. Combinations of these processes are welcome.