Fold

Slash, rip, tear, fold, crumple, crush - these are the first gestures I use to interact with the paper print. As a landscape photographer whose primary interest lies in our relationship with our environment, these manipulations with the printed image become a metaphor for how we treat nature.

In this series, the original photos are crushed and folded, then re-photographed and treated post-production in yet another step that emphasizes our manipulation of the landscape.

The land itself is under pressure. First, tectonically, as these images of canyons and mountain ranges testify. Enormous geophysical pressures are at play. Dramatic geological activity over millennia has resulted in the buckled and folded rock layers that form the crevices, canyons, and elevations in these regions. The faceting and layering of the rock formations are accentuated in the images by the actual folding and creasing of the original photos.

Secondly, and more to the point of the subject of this work, our natural environment is under man-induced pressures resulting in deforestation, toxic pollution, and climate change. Today, only the most remote areas on Earth are free from traces of human encroachment and manipulation.

Thus, there is a direct link between the subject of the photograph and the means of production. The freedom to manipulate the imagery gives me a visual language that allows for a more personal way of presenting the subject matter while expressing my ideas concerning both the subject and the medium of photography itself.