Leaving a Trace

“Landscape is a natural scene mediated by culture. It is both a represented and presented space, both a signifier and signified, both a frame and what a frame contains, both a real place and its simulacrum, both a package and the commodity inside the package.” - W.J.T Mitchell - “Landscape and Power” “Leaving a Trace” explores mans complex relationship with nature. Contact with natural spaces is an important human experience, but the modern human experiences a very different landscape than what is romanticized in traditional landscape imagery. This work examines how the modern human curates, consumes, dominates, and exists in natural spaces. The artist creates these images by hand-lighting the landscape. Often the compositions are made up of many individual photographs which are combined into a single visible frame. The photographer himself also appears in several images holding the light source, but he is erased by use of composite technology. The manipulation of the image references the conflicting relationship that humans have with nature. We crave exposure to nature yet ultimately fail to exist in perfect harmony with it.