New Year’s (and in particular, New Year’s Eve) can easily be reduced to amateur hour—a set of expectations not to be bought into; a mess to be avoided. Nonetheless, I can’t help but feel energized by this time period recognized as transitional: the end of one thing, the beginning of another. There’s something to be said for taking a moment to reset; a moment in which to concretize new intentions and resolutions and to open oneself up to new potential. In the spirit of this notion, what a great moment to immerse oneself in a spate of images, free of context, freshly realized, thanks to the Guest Room here at Der Greif. And so, herewith, I’m delighted to partake in this New Year with New Images. Over the next three weeks, I’ll be posting a series images loosely organized along three thematic lines. Consider them as three propositions as to the wide range of possibilities open to image makers today. I arrived at these themes initially as a way of wrapping my head around the thousands of images in front of me. And especially once I started to winnow down this huge mass of pictures, these rough and admittedly unwieldy categories provided something like signposts to map a way forward – a means of navigation and of ordering.

The first thematic category I’ll call “The Transformational” – images that transform a thin slice of the real into something lyrical and magical. What better way to start the year?