About

“I don' t create the moment. I bear witness to it. A photograph is proof that you were here.”

Daryl Oh is a conceptual photographer and analog archivist reclaiming personal history as a form of public art. Her work sits at the intersection of memory, truth- telling, and creative defiance—using medium- format black- and- white film to document what institutions overlook and time tries to erase.

Raised in the politically performative suburbs of Washington, D. C., Daryl came of age surrounded by third culture kids and global perspectives—an upbringing that made her fluent in contradiction and deeply skeptical of polished narratives. She honed her eye at NYU' s Tisch School of the Arts, then spent a decade in New York as a commercial photographer shooting campaigns, celebrities, and branded content. In 2014, she co- founded Holyrad Studio, a first- of- its- kind production collective giving BIPOC and LGBTQIA + artists access to creative infrastructure.

After walking away from the industry in 2021, Daryl landed in Trinidad, Colorado—by accident. There, what started as a pop- up portrait studio became a movement: Hands of Trinidad, an independent analog archive of over 100 portraits and interviews capturing the hands, stories, and survival of a rural American town in transition.

Taken with a Mamiya RB 67, with no retouching and the same distance, lighting, and frame each time, the portraits are ritualized and raw. Each includes the subject' s palms—echoing traditions of palm reading while honoring the literal work they' ve done to survive. It' s typology as testimony. It' s photography as proof of presence.

In 2024, Hands of Trinidad was awarded the Sharon Prize and exhibited at Space to Create, accompanied by a lecture at Trinidad State College. Daryl is currently developing a photobook and producing a film with Salt Boy Skate Shop documenting Push It Trinidad, a youth- led movement to rebuild the local skatepark.

She lives and works nomadically, with her entire studio packed into one camera bag. Her work is an act of defiance in the face of death and dying through an autoethnographic methodology using film and documentation.