I love the surreal worlds of Rachel Baran, a self-taught, 20-year-old photographer who creates beautiful images—sometimes disturbing, sometimes erotic, always hypnotizing. This is Rachel in her own words, as she told me in an email:
I've been practicing photography as a hobby for somewhere around four years, but as of now I still haven't gotten a chance to take a class in the medium. So while my progress has always been a little slow, being self-taught has given me a lot of confidence in knowing if you really set your mind to doing something it can be done.
I'm currently in my third year at college and come this December I'll be graduating with a degree in psychology and art therapy. And while the future is a little hazy for me at the moment, I know that telling stories through photography will always be an indispensable part of my life, and something that I'll truly enjoy doing throughout the years to come. Making the impossible appear possible has and will always be my end goal.
Rachel Baran is a 20 year old conceptual/fine art photographer living in Ohio, U.S. at the moment. You can follow her work on Flickr and Instagram.
This is part of a series in which we are featuring futuristic, alien-looking or just plain awesome images of landscapes, cityscapes, and objects. If you are a photographer with such work, please drop me a line here.