Terra

About the project

In my years-long aerial documentation of the “wild, untamed” landscapes of this country, I have never been able to capture an image that doesn’t reveal humankind’s impact on that landscape. Even in the most remote regions of Utah or Nevada, in an area one might be tempted to label as barren, every image reveals power lines, mining operations, solar arrays, fire roads, and myriad other examples of human intrusion upon the land. We have reaped many profound benefits from the bounty our earth offers, but clearly we’ve reached too far. Can we be responsible stewards of our planet while simultaneously progressing as a species? I think that should be our goal.

By removing and transforming many common landscape photography tropes, my intention is to present the landscape in a new way that wakes the viewer from a complacent slumber. For example, by framing out the horizon I remove a common anchor that typically gives the viewer a familiar entry point to landscape photography. The mirroring of the image takes this disorientation to a more extreme level. By transforming the image into a sort of Rorschach test, the viewer must engage with the landscape in an entirely unfamiliar way. Latent images emerge from the landscape, tapping into deeper psychological triggers. Even the lighting becomes theatrical, since the sun illuminates the entire image from both sides, as if the mountains, desert, and rocks were on a proscenium. Finally, through a complex post production and printing process, I tease out the intense colors that naturally exist in each landscape. Nothing artificial is added: every color and gradation in the final prints exists in the captured image.

Lastly, our relationship to our planet moves from micro to macro and back again in a continuous flow. Mirroring this relationship, the large, detailed prints allow us to see in an entirely different way... Something not possible in the real world.