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| photograph by Krist Elrick |
My journey with Audubon has brought me to his first home at Mill Grove, and the secret rock where he and Lucy cemented their lifelong love and partnership. In Henderson, Kentucky I document an emotional landscape where he started his family, failed as a businessman and spent time in prison. From the bluffs of Cincinnati, my photo collage radiates the hope and doubt Audubon wrote about, when he began his epic journey floating down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans in 1820. Photographing in Natchez along the Mississippi river, my images show the growth of forests, as they were cotton fields when Audubon visited, before the Civil War. Wherever he roamed, the presence of water seems to be the only constant to his past landscapes. The birds are much harder to find. In searching out the oldest habitats that might best reflect Audubon’s time, I find most are now managed wildlife refuges or state parks. Sometimes they are golf courses, canals, or theme parks. Inevitably, these places are surrounded by the effects of modern day life; parking lots, cattle farms, coal mines, and oil refineries. What is clear is that these preserved habitats offer sanctuary to a dwindling avian population.With 9 days to go, Elrick is just $1500 shy of her goal. You can donate and view her project video here. View Elrick's work on the Photographer's Showcase.
Recently, Everglades National Park awarded me an artist residency, in support for my Audubon project! Working along the Florida coastline will allow me to finish the fieldwork phase of research and photography. I would like to raise $10,000 so that I can buy film, process the negatives and make many work prints. It will also allow me to photograph key sites from the air, or from a birds-eye view.
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| Smerinthus Saliceti by Jo Whaley |
Jo Whaley's series The Theater of Insects is currently on view at The Fox Talbot Museum in Lalock, UK. The exhibition will run through March 24th.
"Insects depicted larger than life, approach a human scale. One can confront them face to face and wonder at their structure and designs. In these images, the insects inhabit peculiar dioramas of an altered environment, which is vaguely familiar to the human mind, but at odds with the natural world. These creatures have seemingly adapted, as they blend amongst the glass, metal and concrete. Atmospheric skies are questionable in their chemical composition. Nature has in turn, deteriorated the man-made, through rust, cracks and decay; indicating that man, too, is as fragile and minuscule as a moth. These images are metaphors of an environmental disquietude. However there is a parallel in reality. Some insects are adopting protective coloring to camouflage with our industrialized environment. The classic example is the white birch moth of Manchester, England; which quite suddenly changed to black, in order to blend with the soot laden trees. Biologists have given this phenomenon the name 'Industrial Melanism.' Insects continue to evolve despite the fumbling of man. Although they appear so small and fragile, their species will most likely exist after we cease to." -- From Jo Whaley's statement on The Theater of Insects
Finally, Chris McCaw has recently been featured online at Discover Magazine. Read the article here. McCaw's book was also recently selected as one of the Best Books of 2012. Signed copies can be purchased here. Anne Kelly's interview with McCaw about the book can be read here. photo-eye's previous interview with McCaw, in which he discusses his homemade cameras, can be read here.