Dining Alone: In the Company of Solitude

DIning Alone: In the Company of Solitude is a fine art photography book that highlights the experience of being alone in public. Scherl uses peopled restaurant interiors as a metaphor to explore the complexities of the subject of solitude. The subtle nuances of her lone diners visually define their experience. This long-term project spanning three decades, culminated during the Covid-19 pandemic.
--Nancy Scherl

Nancy Scherl is a fine art portrait photographer based in New York City. She describes her work as cinematic and often hyper-real, referring to her images as either Staged Realities or Staged Fantasies. In Staged Realities she asks individuals, often strangers, to participate in her photographic projects and provides direction for interpreting and emoting how they feel in that setting. In Staged Fantasies, as a provocateur, she lures viewers into her scientifically impossible visual worlds, designed to intrigue viewers into considering anew their formerly trusted points of view and aspects of the human condition.