In the photo-film Sandman, the narrator wakes beside a stranger as sunlight spills into her room—an anomaly in a world where the weather is programmed. As they step into the empty city, searching for answers, their quiet morning transforms into a surreal journey through an abandoned city frozen in time and a hidden beach where reality begins to dissolve.
Sandman emerged from the discovery of a forgotten roll of black-and-white film I shot during the summer of 2020, capturing a single day in San Francisco with someone who was once close but has since drifted away. Revisiting these images, I felt compelled to reimagine their story on her own terms—honoring the fleeting intimacy of the moment captured on film while embracing the mystery created by time and distance. Blurring the line between memory and fiction, Sandman transforms both the isolation and companionship she experienced during the pandemic into a fantastical reflection on impermanence, nostalgia, and the quiet beauty of connection in uncertain times.