The images in "American Nature" were made over the course of several long-distance road trips across the United States where I immersed myself in the protected and preserved landscapes of national parks, national forests, and nature preserves. During these trips, I sought the iconic nature and geology contained within America's borders. At its heart, this project is an exploration of our current era of climate change—an examination that reaches beyond my anxiety in an attempt to explore the anxieties that may be experienced by a planet and its ecosystems as they grapple with the magnitude of human-induced change.
Using a full-spectrum digital camera, the photographs capture both visible and infrared light, revealing the unseen and blurring the boundary between the known and unknowable. Their dreamlike appearance aims to remove the human-oriented perspective, thrusting the viewer into a space of ambiguity, somewhere between reality and the surreal. Drenched in hues of cyan and crimson, the photographs reference KODAK Aerochrome and its historic military use of surveillance and reconnaissance of war-ravaged landscapes. Like those landscapes of war, nature is embroiled in a conflict, forced to react and transform to the impact of humanity instead of its natural mechanisms. As it changes, it becomes unfamiliar to us, increasingly perilous and unpredictable.
Earth is in a perpetual state of metamorphosis, shaped by the powerful forces of volcanoes, tectonic shifts, glaciers, and erosion, which are slow mutations that sculpt the world over millennia. Climate change has altered Earth's natural rhythms, its effects are hastening and its terminus is uncertain. Just as we strive to adapt, so too will Earth.
