Brianna “B” Tadeo
I often think about the Giant Camera at Ocean Beach in San Francisco—a pale yellow, boxy structure beside the Cliff House that feels like a portal into something both mysterious and familiar. Built in 1946, I first encountered it in 2011 while out photographing. Its hours vary with the weather, so every visit feels uncertain. Inside, a 360-degree live projection of the ocean and cliffs is cast into a large bowl from a lens in the ceiling. A railing encircles it, like a barrier between our world and another. I’ve seen camera obscuras before, but nothing like this. Though you could step outside and view the same scene directly, watching it projected through mirrors and light transforms it. The experience feels intimate, suspended in time.
This idea of stepping inside the act of seeing mirrors my analog photography practice. I work with materials meant to last, yet I often allow images to deteriorate. I’m fascinated by what’s revealed through their disintegration—what beauty might emerge in impermanence. What if we became the camera ourselves, fully present in each fleeting moment? Our eyes could serve as the lens, and our bodies would act as the sensor. Photography, then, isn’t just about capturing—it’s about being. My work explores this tension: between presence and loss, memory and forgetting. The Giant Camera reminds me that light alone, passing through a pinhole, can create wonder. In embracing fragility, I find a kind of magic—alive, breathing, and always changing.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Brianna “B” Tadeo
Brianna Tadeo (they/them) is a visual artist whose work explores the poetic possibilities of impermanence through experimental photography. Their hybrid practice blends analog and digital methods, shaped by ongoing engagement with photographic objects, light phenomena, and discarded materials. Grounded in themes of memory, transformation, and decay, Tadeo creates tactile works that reflect on the fleeting nature of experience and the quiet magic of light.
Originally introduced to the darkroom at age 12 in Philadelphia, Tadeo has cultivated their approach over years of material exploration. They hold a BFA from California College of the Arts and an MFA in Studio Arts from the University of New Mexico. Currently living and working in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They have shown at Personal Space, Lionel Rombach Gallery, Northlight Gallery, Tamarind Gallery, Sanitary Tortilla Factory Strata Gallery, Harwood Art Center, John Sommers Gallery, Anglim Gilbert Gallery, AIPAD in NYC, Gallery 1/1, and with Art Intersection. Their work has been featured in SOVO//Magazine, One Twelve Publishing issue Diffusion IX, The Hand Magazine, and Group Study.
Website: briannatadeo.com
Instagram: brianna_tadeo
