Susan Derges

[4] Propelling a jet of water through the air, Derges used a strobe light to capture the suspended lens-like droplets set against a blurred image of her own face.

[3][4][5] Using the landscape at night as her makeshift darkroom, Derges submerged large sheets of photographic paper in rivers, using a flashlight and the moon to create exposure.

[4][5] Having trained in painting, Derges expressed an early interest in abstraction because "it offered the promise of being able to speak of the invisible rather than to record the visible".

In Derges' photography, nature imprints patterns and rhythms of motion, growth and form directly on the light-sensitive surface of the photographic emulsion, such as falling water drops, busy honeycombs, and vessels of germinating toad's eggs.

"[3] Cycles of life, death and change, and their relationship to physical experience are explored through visual metaphors that borrow from science, nature, psychology, and art.

[1] Using the river near her Devon home as a lens, Derges captured fragments of ivy, ice, and debris reflected in or passing through the water.

[citation needed] Her 2017 series Tide Pools was developed with the assistance from the department of Marine Biology at the University of Plymouth, where she served as Visiting Professor of Photography.