Tracy L. Chandler: At the Edge

Tracy L. Chandler: At the Edge by Aline SmithsonMarch 19, 2019

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©Tracy L Chandler, Baby Jesus, from Edge Dwellers

Tracy L Chandler’s compelling and poignant series Edge Dwellers is photography at it’s best. The work speaks to the power of the medium as a vehicle for bearing witness, for understanding and contemplating humanity, and for providing connection to unseen populations. Tracy’s large format capture of marginalized individuals who make their home on the edges of the California coast reveals a particular community that is often ignored and misunderstood. A large part of her practice is connecting to her subjects in a profound way, slowing down her photography and making portraits as a collaborative experience.

Tracy L Chandler is a photographic storyteller based in Los Angeles, CA. Her work explores fringe communities and addresses themes of seeing and being seen. Tracy was raised in Palm Springs, CA and attended college in Seattle, WA, where she informally studied photography and filmmaking. After a decade pursuing a successful production career in New York City, she returned to the west coast to focus on photography. She has extensive experience photographing skateboarding and cycling culture and her work has been featured widely in journals and publications. Her fine art work explores peripheral communities and her own personal story reflected through portraiture and narrative.

©Tracy L Chandler, Lone Wolf, from Edge Dwellers

Edge Dwellers

We all want to be seen. And by that I mean really seen. Recognized as existing. Here. Now. Exactly as we are. No caveats. No judgements.

There is a community of people who dwell along the Southern California coast. Marginalized from “normal society”, they either can’t or won’t toe the line. They live and work and breathe and die right on the edge. Literally along the edge… The edge of the country, the edge of the state, the edge of the city, the edge of land where the vastness of the sea takes over. They can’t physically go any further. And so there they stay, seemingly living as outcasts of the world, yet they very much belong to their own. And they very much exist.

As I walk along this coast, I look. I take the time to see, to open, to be. And to be with. Often times something interesting happens… I fall in love. – Tracy L Chandler