Spagna was the first person to photograph sleep extensively...his photographs have done more than any other medium to make sleep science visible and understandable to the general public.
– Dr. Allan Hobson, psychiatrist and dream researcher
In 1975, with an endless curiosity about the unknowable sleeping psyche, Ted Spagna began to photograph people and eventually animals sleeping, discovering a new kind of portraiture.
The significance of this work lies in both its aesthetic and scientific implications. Researchers never had this kind of visual information before. His photographs were evidence of a ninety-minute human sleep cycle, and physiological manifestations of dream activity.
In 1989 Spagna was at the height of his career, gaining worldwide recognition and accolades for his sleep photography work when he met his untimely death at the young age of 46.
The Ted Spagna Project is a creative endeavor whose mission is to awaken and give new life to work that has laid dormant for over 20 years.
Sleep by Ted Spagna
Sleep Snapshots by Ron Eldridge
Graphic Sleep Art Collaborations by Bonfilio, Spagna, & Eldridge