As some of you may know…
I have fallen in love with National Parks here in the United States. I think the fact that we have (and will hopefully continue having) these Public Lands is absolutely amazing, and incredibly important. Landscape photography has a deep history. We can travel all the way back to 1904 to when Edward Steichen took ‘Moonlight: The Pond'.’ Which was an eerie landscape of trees and a (believe it or not) pond. We fast forward to the 1930’s and 40’s which was prime time for Anselm Adams to have been creating. His incredibly fine detailed landscape photographers are still commented as some of the best today. We continue throughout history finding Carleton Watkins to Edward Weston to Abelardo Morell (one of my all time favorite photographers) along the way. The landscape comes in so many forms. Whether the image was made with a wet plate, or camera obscure the beauty in these Public Lands just really blew my mind. And in some cases these images helped pave the way to our National Park system (looking at you Carlton Watkins).
Snap us back to the present, where in a critique recently in my seminar class at MICA I was reminded that these lands that I love so much, that are protected and put on view, were taken (as all land in the US is). So, this question of protected stolen lands really got me thinking of the histories of these parks. I still want to celebrate the system we have created to protect these beautiful landscapes, but my mind can’t help to wander to would they have needed to be protected if we hadn’t taken them?
As my mind continues to work through these questions my yearning to learn about the stories of the lands grow stronger, and I find myself thinking about it all the time. So this is where my work has come to in my second semester of grad school. A whole lot of questions waiting to be answered through image. I wonder where this path will take me…
So where does this lead us?
At the end of February I am going to visit my friend, Sally, in St. John where there’s a National Park that basically covers the entire island. This will be my first National Park of 2020 AND my first National Park where I am actively thinking about my thesis and what it means.
And then the second week of March I’m doing the route below and hitting three National Parks in the matter of 6 days. Those will be Conagree, Smokey Mountain, and Mammoth Cave.
My research is more focused toward St. John currently since that’s first on my list but I am excited to see how the first National Park with this notion in my head goes.
Rocky Mountain National Park
Yosemite National Park
Sequoia National Park with my two favorite Nic’s :)