Julia Beyer’s world is on fire. She recently returned from a trip to Iceland where she used Expired Polaroid Time Zero film to create scenes that transformed the wilderness around her into psychedelic fantasies. Beyer has managed to capture one of the most beautiful locations on earth and turn it into a flaming dreamscape suitable only for an adventure from reality.

The landscapes she captures are exquisitely flawed from the expired chemistry in the expired film she uses that echo the increasing reality of our world heating up. You can easily project that the surreal views she presents represent not only our dying world, but the need to escape the harsh truths of humanities’ grim future. The blue hues and golden flames that engulf the natural wonders she travels to exemplify the increasingly sparse true wilderness areas of our world that are slowly growing up in flames.

When asked about her experiences visiting Iceland this year in July 2018 she described the country as a place of pure beauty that is one of the last places on earth - raw and majestic, yet still vast and intimidating. She noted that because many of the regions of Iceland are not inhabited it is easy to feel like you are alone on this planet, however, this feeling fades when you start to notice how humans have permanently changed this land for the worse. After the initial shock of beauty, Beyer was left with feelings of sadness while observing the rapidly receding glaciers, mindless tourists littering everywhere and treading on delicate moss that will take years to naturally regrow.

Though Beyer’s images transport us to these dark and mysterious places, she has no intention of us staying there. Beyer’s other artistic talents extend to music where she performs vocals in the Germany based dreampop band, Chandeen. Here, her melancholy voice is placed on top of dreamy trip hop synth backings that explore the sadness that is present even when the beats tell us otherwise. Beyer’s has been producing records with Chandeen since 2007, which is where she first encountered the world of expired Polaroid film. In 2008, French Polaroid photographer Emilie Lefellic filmed and produced the music video for “Welcome the Still” using various mediums including expired Polaroid film which upon its viewing, mesmerized Beyer with its unique and satisfying beauty.

In 2012, though she was preoccupied with her musical endeavors, Beyer began to have an artistic passion growing inside her to work with the medium of instant film. It was at this time that she recalled her exposure to the sensual and delicate pieces created by Emilie Lefellic and took the plunge into the instant film world. Though she would have liked this first attempt to be successful, she was met with the frustration of mediocre results from some of the first batches of the Impossible Project’s (now Polaroid Originals) Push! film. Not being one to give up, she persevered through the steep learning curve of using the Impossible Project film and finally started to shoot on a regular basis in the spring of 2014. Through this transition she realized that she began to look at things differently than before, using photography as a way to change her perception of the world around her. She told us that “Where I saw ugly skyscrapers before, I now see interesting geometric shapes. Where I saw a gas station in the night, I now see endless combinations of colors”.

“I don’t have any interest to capture the scene like I see it right before my eyes - then I could as well shoot digital - but I love to add another, dreamlike dimension to it through the (mostly) expired chemistry with beautifully flawed results.”