Words by Niko Liakaris

"Disappear Here" is a self-published series of photography books by Los Angeles-based Film Photographer Kristin Gallegos. Each bound edition offers a cinematic glance into an imagined day-in-the-life of a different female character, played by a muse of the photographer. Shot entirely on film and limited to 100 signed and numbered copies per installment, the personas are inspired by fictional and real-life idols of Kristin's.

It’s an Indian summer in New York City, and the living is still easy for the residents of the Chelsea Hotel. Taxis creep up and down the West end of 23rd Street which echoes a persistent early evening chorus of car horns, yelps, and jazz music. I’ve just settled into my new home, a single room at the hotel-come-boarding house and nearby I can hear an electric guitar being poorly tuned. The fragrances of amber, patchouli, pot, and a cacophony of foods being prepared by my new neighbors mix with the exhaust of too many Chevies trying to find their way home through the Lincoln tunnel. I step out onto one of the hotel’s Queen Anne inspired balconies which I share with the adjacent rooms and am startled as I turn to my right and see a woman staring down into the view finder of a complicated looking camera while adjusting the lens. I hear the flicker of the shutter as she takes my photo, slightly disheveled and surprised, the beginning of a sunset over the Hudson River as the backdrop. She looks up at me, offers a nod, and quickly disappears through lace curtains into her room.  

This experience is one that I have imagined, but the photograph that inspired it is from Kristin Gallegos’ final edition of her self published ‘Disappear Here’ book series, which was collectively shot in New York City and Los Angeles. It will debut on November 18th and stars Tali Lennox as The Photographer, following her character cinematically through what will in a few short years earn the moniker ‘Fear City.’ In anyone else’s hand such iconography would feel like costume, but Kristin Gallegos is a stickler for details and authenticity. Her photography is striking. Slightly macabre. Gossamery. Familiar. These dichotomies and attention to detail set her work apart from other would-be artists who romanticize an era that didn’t guarantee heat and water in your apartment and wherein your friends were more likely to leave your home town to go to war than for a career in ‘the big city.’

Her default status as a doyen of the history of the era, incredible attention to detail, and cunning ability to capture light set her and these collections apart and elevate her work. These details as much as the vintage glamour inform her portraits and you can feel it subliminally when presented with these collections. She has an incredible gift in her ability to keep you lingering; Voyeurism is a manifest theme of her work but it allays worry. The cat and mouse cliches that her male contemporaries produce lack the intimacy that Kristin captures in her photography. This nuance paired with her technical skill is what has sold out each of her previous books and garners her acclaim when she presents gallery shows. 

Kristin Gallegos’ four-part book series is a culmination of years of work honing her craft. Her ability to nurture a narrative with her lens is exceptional and ‘Disappear Here’ is a brilliant showcase of this multi-hyphenate artist’s skill set. The thinly veiled autobiographical series was informed by Kristin’s decades long career in the Fashion Industry and inspired by an anthropological knowledge of the film, design, and culture of the major metropolises of the 1960s and 1970s. The source material for each volume is extensive (Deborah Turbeville, Russian ballet dancers, Joan Didion, and Diana Ross are just a few of the afflatuses for the series) and she is gracious enough to offer us source material in the intro of each tome allowing us to delve into her world as deeply as we please. Though each portrait can be appreciated on it’s own without any backstory or glossary, the film like narrative of each book is brilliantly conspired. It’s not difficult at all to find yourself transported to another timeline where you lock eyes with the main character and become a part of the story yourself.

You can pre-order it here