The World is Astonishing with You in it: A 21st Century Field Guide to the Birds, Ferns and Wildflowers, 2019 - present
These lumen collages from the larger work, "Lumen Notebook," are cameraless sun-prints made with a wide variety of black & white photo papers. A closer looks shows these shapes each abstractly depict specific wildlife (eggs, beaks, birds, shoots, ferns, petals, flora).
A part of the larger body of work, “Lumen Notebook,” this work employs three field guides – field guides to North American birds, ferns, and wildflowers that belonged to my late mother. I mark/expose the photographic paper, making one mark per quadrant or half, with an edge of the respective book. Every paper type and brand turns a different latent color - what I think of as the paper’s own “color alphabet.” I have experimented with at least 100 different papers, both current and expired. Each photograph references an endangered or disappearing species (bird, fern, wildflower).
I have been making the work in nature, at different residencies, and my family's Canadian cabin, where the birds and ferns and wildflowers abound.
Images and papers:
Henslow’s Sparrow, Ilford warmtone RC
Tall Bugbane II, Illford MG4 RC deluxe
Hart’s Tongue, Kodak Ployfiber FD
Sprague’s Pipit II, Ilford Fine Art 300
Sage Thrasher, Ilford MG5 deluxe RC
Scarlet Ammania, Illford RC warmtone
Spalding’s Campion, Ilford MG4 FB
Whooping Crane, Adorama FB
Golden Leather Ferns, Oriental FB
Purple Coneflower, Kodak Supra Endura RC
Bear’s Foot Sanicle, Flexicon VC
Coastal Wood Fern, Ilford Classic RC
Mountain Plover, Multitone Gloss RC
Mountain Holly Fern, Oriental FB