The Digital Sublime: Lessons from Kelli Connell’s Double Life

Abstract The digital sublime refers to digital-composite photography that presents "the existence of something unpresentable" and that renders a matchless look–a sophisticated fabrication, a perfect and clean composition, a maximum color saturation, a multiple-point perspective, and stunning or newfangled content. Abandoning the traditional one-shot mode of production, photographers who create the digital sublime knit pieces of images together to concretize something that cannot be seen with the naked eye. To gain a better understanding of the work of photographers of the digital sublime, this essay cites the photographic project Double Life by contemporary photographer Kelli Connell as an example of how examining an artist’s view of reality helps viewers identify valuable knowledge provided by her work. The essay investigates Connell’s worldview, or what she values as knowledge, by inquiring into her view of reality. It asks, "How does a photographer who produces seamless digital-synthesized photographs depict her view of reality in photographs?" and "What types of knowledge do her photographs communicate to viewers?" This study has implications for how digital sublime photographs can be studied and taught.