"The idea for Beyond The Assignment first came to me in 2009 when I was looking through my archive, selecting images to print and hang in my office. I kept gravitating toward images that were not really about the architecture or the design that they represented. They were images that captured my own elation as I found and captured something extraordinary. They expressed my unique experience of the architecture or the design and how it moved and inspired me. The realization that I was moved to create these types of images while on the job reminded me how much I love what I do.
My work serves a function for my clients and the architecture and design community at large, while allowing me to express my creativity; a perfect coming together of work and pleasure. I started to think about why this mutual benefit was an important component of my practice, what it added to my work and, by extension, to the larger discourse. I also started to think about the images that turned me onto the field of architectural photography and which photographers were behind them. Quickly a show of these types of images started to evolve and take shape in my mind."
- Bilyana Dimitrova, excerpt from the catalog