A darkroom is where light becomes memory.

Sandy Lloyd’s relationship with photography began at age 10, when a Brownie camera transformed family moments into tangible keepsakes—images she still treasures today. By 18, she found her true calling in the alchemy of the darkroom, developing a lifelong devotion to analog processes. Though digital cameras briefly lured her into convenience, she returned to the tactile craft of film and silver gelatin prints, seeking the control and intimacy only hands-on creation can provide.

Her education reads like a love letter to photography’s soul. Under mentors like Amy Blakemore (MFAH), Will Michels (Glassell School), and Peter Brown (Rice University), Sandy honed her eye for the quiet poetry of still lifes, the geometry of shadows, and the emotional depth of platinum palladium printing—a technique she studied with masters from New Mexico to Maine. These collaborations taught her to see light as both collaborator and confidant.

Sandy’s work lives in the space between documentation and elegy. Her series Requiem for a Son (collected by Museum of Fine Arts Houston and recognized in Black & White magazine) transforms personal grief into universal meditation, channeling the vanitas tradition through haunting darkroom prints. Other projects—whether capturing the transient architecture of umbrellas or the life cycle of flowers—reveal her fascination with time’s quiet negotiations.

Exhibited at Rice University, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and FotoFest, and Black & White magazine, her images reward slow looking. They ask viewers to linger on the grain of a petal, the fracture of light through glass, the way a platinum palladium print holds shadow like a secret.

For Sandy, photography is an act of devotion. Every print—whether a family snapshot or a gallery piece—whispers the same promise: “All that I am is because of you. All that I do is for you.”

BIO | CV