Structuring Nature Select Images 2024

As I photographed over the last few years, I became drawn not only to man’s encroachment into natural spaces but our need to control nature. Through photography, I explore the complex relationships we humans have with the natural world; a sense of its primal wildness runs through our own spiritual passions and desires, yet we deny this connection through expressions of dominance and attempts to transform nature to serve our more basic utilitarian needs. The natural world in its purity is wild and, left unchecked, nature will take over. Emotionally, we may be drawn to it, but the wildness of nature fills no utilitarian purposes and may even thwart our ambitions. To reconcile this tension, we seek to control nature, to have it conform to our sense of practical order. This is evident in the contrasting appearances of the natural world and our constructed environments. Our houses provide shelter and protect us from the natural environment; they keep us warm in the winter, cool in the summer heat, and dry when the rain comes. Yet, we surround ourselves with a controlled version of nature: houseplants inside our homes, neatly manicured lawns, heavily designed gardens and parks, and trees planted in orderly rows. Powerlines run through our cities and across the landscape. They are so common that we hardly notice that they are blocking our view of the natural world around us. There are three portfolio series of “Structuring Nature” here on my website that show the evolution of the project. We have a deep need for nature, but also a need for control over nature.