Snowshoe, 2026
Milkweed, 2026
Strike, 2026
Untitled (Bird in Flight), 2025
Untitled (Corn), 2025
Untitled (Two Frogs), 2026
Crumble, 2025
Heliopsis, 2025
Untitled (Saw-whet), 2026
Tip, 2025
Goldenrod, 2025
Blind, 2025
Untitled (Pear), 2025
Trace, 2025
Shatter, 2025
Hacksaw, 2026
Bait, 2026
Untitled (Camper), 2026
Large archival pigment prints on Bamboo Paper
Statement on Torch:
Humans, as animals, are inhabitants of the natural landscape. We come from it evolutionarily, and are dependent on it. In spite of this, we have an estranged relationship with it. It is only through this relationship that we view ourselves as apart from what is out-of-doors: the landscape is treated as a place to exploit, or a place to reserve and remove from human influence. In Torch, I ask the viewer to engage with the environment on a human-animal level; to reckon with how we exist within the environment and our own inevitable impact upon it.
Likewise, as inextricable as humans are to the landscape, the photographer is inextricable from the image. An image is a story, and it is as distinctly human as a tree felled for lumber or firewood.
To engage with these concepts, I have borrowed the methods and language of historical press and documentary photography. Bright flash illuminates scenes in severe detail, and yet is totally artificial. It is a small fiction; a contrived way of seeing; a human engagement of the environment. Subject matter engages with this as well, often showing the environment as it is altered by human presence.
I work slow. I shoot medium and large formats with cameras never meant to leave a studio. I fill the pockets of an old army jacket with all my negative carriers, flashes, and lights. My heavy tripod is slung across my back, and a workshop spotlight hangs off my belt. I move awkwardly, hands full and body encumbered. I am essentially stuck in one place once I set up a shot. For all of a couple minutes, I am at the mercy of the landscape.
Sometimes, when it's time to make the exposure, I open the shutter and walk away to where I need the flash. For this moment, I am immersed in complete darkness, counting paces– I feel not like a photographer visiting the woods, but an inhabitant of the landscape, going about my business like a deer foraging. Then a blinding light explodes out of the hunk of plastic in my hand, and a few seconds later I return to my stuff.
The name Torch is meant to evoke the literal handheld object of fire and light, man’s first tool to isolate from the nighttime. For a fleeting moment, the camera’s flash recalls this light, held close to the viewer's eyeline. It illuminates what is close and lets what is far fade. It creates a drama - trees and foliage assume roles like thespians against a black velvet curtain; presented especially for human eyes. Impressions of the landscape taken for human consumption.