Alyson Aliano, Portrait and Reportage Photographer, Los Angeles

A woman with short red hair and a young girl with short brown hair sitting on a bed in a room with a canopy and a window, looking at the camera. The girl is wearing a red checkered dress, and the woman has a white top and a gold bow around her neck.

“ Real Mother is a visual inquiry into what it means to be a mother. I began the project when I became a stepmother to twin girls and found myself repeatedly asked whether I planned to have children of my “own.” The question carried an implication, that as a stepparent, I wasn’t a “real parent,” despite living the daily realities of motherhood: doctor visits, playdates, birthday parties, summer camps, and saving for college. The experience was exhilarating, uncertain, and deeply formative, prompting me to consider how motherhood is defined and who gets to claim it. I began photographing a wide range of women; biological, step, adoptive, foster, and lesbian mothers, who shared their hopes, fears, and lived experiences. Real Mother brings together varied forms of motherhood into a shared visual narrative, suggesting that motherhood is not singular, but shaped through care, commitment, and time.”

“The Time in Between is a collaborative, interdisciplinary body of work by myself and my stepdaughter that examines love, loss, and the formation of family in the aftermath of absence. The title refers to the emotional space between seeing someone for the last time and learning how to live without them. Spanning twenty-five years and moving from film to digital, the project chronicles my stepdaughters’ lives. The photographs move between portrait and lived moment, documenting subtle shifts from childhood into adolescence. Together, the images form an ongoing personal archive, less about milestones and more about presence, memory, and the passage of time within a family.”

“Immersed chronicles a diver’s commitment and athleticism. I remember watching her as a little girl, flying off the 10-meter board in disbelief. Years later, that same focus and determination have carried her to Brown University, where she now competes and has broken school records.
This series grew out of witnessing her dedication over time, repetition, discipline, and the quiet moments between climbs up the ladder.”

REAL MOTHER

“Familiar Places began as I was leaving New York, my forever home, to build a new life in Los Angeles. In the early months, there was an urgency to photograph, to hold onto the people and places that had shaped me.
As I slowly made a life in Los Angeles, I built a new home with my partner. The work expanded, shifting from looking back to also looking forward. Familiar Places brings together photographs of people, interiors, and landscapes that carry a sense of belonging.
This series considers home not as a fixed location, but as something formed through relationships and time. It asks what it means to belong, how we hold one another in memory, and what remains when a place, or a person, becomes familiar enough to feel like home.”

A young blonde girl holding a calico cat outside at dusk.

“AM/PM :

In the early days of the pandemic, time collapsed. Each day felt indistinguishable from the next, a continuous loop of mornings and evenings with little to separate them. Struggling with how to document that suspended moment, I proposed an idea to my partner. With work disappearing and uncertainty everywhere, he laughed: “There is no work, and you want me to work?” Still, he helped me light the scenes, and the project became a collaboration.
Together, we made photographs that reflect the monotony and psychological blur of lockdown, the repetition of daily rituals, the quiet shifts between AM and PM, and the strange stillness that defined that period. ”

“I’ve been photographing teenagers since my art school thesis, when I was closer to their age myself. Now they’re often friends’ kids, people I’ve watched grow into themselves. There’s an honesty at this stage of life that feels unguarded: a mix of innocence and self-awareness, of uncertainty and anticipation. They stand on the threshold of becoming, still rooted in youth while reaching toward the world. ”

TIME IN BETWEEN

A person standing at the edge of a diving board at an outdoor swimming pool, with the pool and swimmers in the background.

IMMERSED

Smiling woman in a pink and orange patterned towel, wearing sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat, sitting in a blue beach chair on a sandy beach. Man lying on the sand beside her, wearing sunglasses and a bucket hat, relaxing with palm trees and cabanas in the background.

AM PM

Two men sitting on a bed, one resting his head on the other's shoulder, in a bedroom with a painting of a beach and waves on the wall, a window showing trees outside, and a bedside table.

FAMILIAR PLACES

TEENS

Four young women sitting on stairs outside a building with neon lights at night. One is drinking from a cup, and others are talking or looking around.