bio:
Ask Betsy Malloy about her photography and she’ll tell you she spent decades making pretty pictures, but they weren’t enough. It took a push from photographer Seth Resnick to change that—and once she understood that emotion was the whole point, she couldn’t un-know it.
Her series Out of Gas looks at the American energy transition through the emotions it evokes. The images are shot in daylight and finished at night, a choice she makes deliberately: daylight masks the essence of the scene.
If you ask Betsy what’s next, she’ll tell you she doesn’t know what the subject will be, but she does know that she won’t be making merely pretty pictures again.
Statement:
The Out of Gas project began at a filling station, a structure decidedly left behind. I almost didn’t stop, but something tugged me off the road. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It took a decade to discover my attraction: its hidden emotion, a feeling of being left behind.
We’re living in a liminal moment — gasoline power fades in the rearview mirror, an uncertain future lies somewhere ahead. The change stirs up complicated emotions: sadness, defiance, resignation, hope.
These are emotions people feel, but rarely name — the anger at an EV in traffic, the dread of a future just out of focus. I find those feelings embodied in the scenes I photograph.
