Lynn Alleva Lilley – The Nest

Around 2016 Lynn Alleva Lilley (US) started to regularly visit the woods around Sligo Creek close to her home. During her contemplative walks, she began to observe and photograph the many small details. The shimmering winter light, the tiny curling tendrils of a climber, the dry grasses in winter, the fresh green in spring. In her silent movement, she also met the deer, the birds, the cicada, the snake, the turtle and many more characters that inhabit this piece of land along the creek.

In June 2022, her mobility was limited heavily as a result of an accident. When she was able, she returned often to one of her favourite places near the woods and creek… the stormwater pond. Looking deeply and photographing the pond changed the work.

What makes Lynn’s photography special is her ­ability to transcend plain observation. She manages to arouse what is not directly perceptible to the senses. In the book we become part of the place, we connect to the vegetation and animals, not as the ‘superior’ human, but as part of the ecosystem that is The Nest.

“These lines in nature felt like possibility, a way to weave a life out of fragility, upheaval and chaos and into a healing beauty. Evidence of presence and transience continues to surprise and I’m left again with questions.”

Lynn Alleva Lilley is an American photographer born in Washington, DC and currently living in Silver Spring, MD. At the core of her photographic work is connection with place and nature. She has a particular interest in the photobook as a uniquely intimate way of presenting her photographs. Her first photobook, Tender Mint, includes photographs made in Jordan (2011-2014) which embody loss, grief, and surprising, otherworldly beauty. The photographs in her photobook, Deep Time (Spring 2019), present the mysterious life and world of the Atlantic horseshoe crab, Limulus polyphemus. Lynn began as a self-taught photographer over 25 years ago and later studied with photographer Terri Weifenbach in Maryland and Washington, D.C.