Into the Anthropocene

In late 2016, while traveling through the wheat-growing region of southeastern Washington, I became aware of current scientific studies indicating the Earth had entered a new Epoch in its evolutionary age. Termed the Anthropocene, it is defined as human-influenced, where our activity has caused irreversible changes to land, oceans, and air. Anthropocene supplants the Holocene that began at the end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago. Gaining this understanding while photographing in the Palouse grasslands – now wheat fields - made vital connections for me between conflicts I felt photographing the destroyed natural ecosystem of the Palouse, that was yet, still beautiful.

Terra-formed and overlaid by commerce since before the dawn of the Anthropocene (actual starting point TBD), the topography of the Palouse is embellished by pattern and design across its surface - all byproducts of efficient farming required by constraints of the rolling terrain. It seemed a visual dance - or was it a struggle - between human imposed order and natural growth cycles, an imposition and collaboration at the same time. What was revealed I found compelling - strangely alien but completely human. By allowing human intervention to speak over the landscape itself in these images, I began to imagine a new landscape, more of its time. Our new Earth Epoch became the starting point for this body of work that explores vast human-altered landscapes. I am both concerned and curious how repercussions from our rapidly expanding world need for Agriculture, Energy, and Water, impact our planet and ultimately us.

Working locally (western U.S.), I travel to other sites in the landscape where extraction of natural resources made profound impacts that damage or destroy existing ecosystems. In addition to agricultural sites, I visited pit mines, oilfields and solar farms. Water storage and transport sites that also create major impacts on the land are included. My approach here was similar in that I allow the human elements to take precedence over the natural in ways that expose extreme degradation while still expressing the terrible beauty of degraded landscapes and ecosystems. In each location, I was simultaneously dazzled and disturbed by the scope of these transformations - many occurring in my lifetime.

All of the places I visit are accessible to the public, and all image were made standing on the ground - no drones or aircraft. I've included GPS coordinates on most images so viewers may locate and/or visit, to truly experience how these places contribute to climate change.