In the late 1960s, photographer Arthur Tress interviewed a group of children with a single objective: that they describe their dreams and nightmares through short narratives or poems. The value of these interviews was already significant on its own, but Tress decided to go a step further and invited those children to reenact their nightmares in real life, with them as actors. This led to El Coleccionista de Sueños, a publication from 1972 full of surreal images and disturbing ones that greatly changed the photography of the era.
A Photographic Approach
El Coleccionista de Sueños was created in a period dominated by what Tress himself called "documentary realism" and the street photography of the 1960s, leaning toward staged photography, a line similar to that followed by his colleague and friend Duane Michals (whom I recommend you search on Google Images). Tress's images reflect a certain minimalism, never losing their disturbing profile, and on several occasions, claustrophobic. El Coleccionista de Sueños makes us feel uncomfortable, and probably that might be the key to its success.
The Gallery
