Bio

Debe Arlook is an award-winning American photographer, writer, mentor, consultant, and printer. She majored in Visual Communications and minored in Psychology at American University, Washington D.C. After graduating, Arlook drove across the country to become a film director in Hollywood, California. Her progressing career turned into a hiatus, aka motherhood. Years later, she rediscovered still photography, became devoted to personal growth and meditation, became a life coach and led (non-denominational) spiritually minded workshops for ten years.

Arlook’s conceptual and documentary work depicts musings related to personal growth, relationships, the landscape, and the larger environment. She uses diverse photographic processes, including digital and analog techniques, mixed media, and collage, to illustrate these perceptions. Her studies in filmmaking, psychology, and spirituality inform these practices. She exhibits in solo and group exhibitions throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia, including the Lishui Art Museum, Photo London, Indian Photo Festival, Lancaster Museum of Art & History, Griffin Museum of Photography, Center for Photographic Art, and Foley Gallery.  

Arlook is recognized for her new project, Witness, as a Klompching Gallery FRESH 2024 Finalist and is the recipient of  People's Choice Award. Her ongoing project, one, one thousand…,  is also acknowledged as being named a Focus Photo L.A. Finalist 2023, Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 2022, Critical Mass Finalist 2021, CENTER Social Award Honorable Mention 2022, LensCulture Summer Open, and others. In 2022, forty-six prints were featured in a five-month solo exhibition at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, and thirty-five prints were exhibited at the Lennox-Lombroso Conference sponsored by Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital.

Her photographs have been featured in numerous magazines, including All About Photo, Strange Fire, Feature Shoot, Lenscratch, Frames Magazine, Fraction Magazine, L’Oeil de la Photographie, Rangefinder, Shots Magazine, What Will You Remember, and One Twelve Publishing. Arlook's books include Memory Orchards: Photographers and their Families, california love - a visual mixtape, Perceive Me, Emptiness Defined, and the upcoming release of Both Sides of the Table: Photography Portfolio Reviews Do's & Don'ts. 

In addition to her studio practice, Arlook is on the teaching roster at the Los Angeles Center of Photography and John C. Campbell Folk School. She is a Pasadena Photography Arts Advisor and PhotoBook Journal contributing editor and resource manager. Arlook transitioned from the darkroom to inkjet printing and founded Arlook Printing Services in 2016, where she provides project consultation and archival printing for fine art photographers. Her studio is in Santa Monica, California.