Suzette Bross' For the Glass transforms the flatbed scanner into a contemporary version of the photographic plate. Meditating on the tradition of portraiture, Bross mimics the sharp details and imperfections in the surfaces of 19th-century studio portraits. She uses digital equipment to return to this slow pace of production by scanning over her subjects as they sit for extended exposures. Bross' portraits capture every movement to create a unique digital image that she cannot replicate. Her relationship with her subjects becomes a performative act of photographing. With the inclusion of Bross' likeness in the series, her focus is on the intimacy of the work's process and her investigations on how one is to interact with her reinvented plate. This suite of prints invites the viewer to become immersed in the surface of the image as it magnifies her relationship to the process and our uneasy relationship with technology.
