Matthew Brandt’s experimental approach to image making reconfigures the basic physical elements of photographic objects. In his Lakes and Reservoirs series, Brandt photographed bodies of water throughout the American West and then soaked the prints for several weeks in water he had collected from those locations. The lake water broke down each image, causing the color dyes to dissolve and mix together and the emulsion to bubble and crack, abstracting what was once a straightforward description of a majestic vista. The resulting image is literally embedded with the residue of what it represents and, in a sense, was created in collaboration with the landscape itself.