Earth Series

2003-2005

For years I have been fascinated with patterns created within and by the natural world. As a photographer, I was also interested in the role of photography in recording and presenting natural forces; water, wind and light. The merging of these two interests result in Earth Series. I want to make visible the forces in nature which are difficult to discern, but are powerful connotations of the physics of the natural world. These images result in abstract and sometimes complex patterns that rely heavily on the subtlety of detail.

The natural evolution in the Earth Series led to Earth Maps, which utilizes the same investigation, but here I bring together individual 16” x 20” toned gelatin silver images into a diptych or a “quadtych” to form a larger image. Maps have been used throughout history to describe land formations and provide directions traversing or finding specific locations. I call this work Earth Maps because I wanted to reinterpret the utilitarian notion of a map as an abstract idea, to “map” these patterns that may, or may not, become familiar once they are linked together. The result is a landscape map of a particular locale and pattern that forms by virtue of the elements in nature.