dryoptera's photostream  

After a few years of shooting I've decided to step back and evaluate exactly what the point of all of these shots has been. There are definate themes running through the shots, but in a sense it all felt very disjointed. Opportunistic.

Looking back, I find it very funny to see that I don't have a single shot with a human in it. And while there are anthropomorphic subjects, these are often relegated to abandoned stonewalls, lichened-covered gravestones and old foundations of homesteads now forgeotten in the forests.

On the other hand, the vast majority of subjects have come from the natural world. These are often studies of individual species, seperated - visually - from their ecosystems. But not in isolation. I think one thing that I've been doing is subconsciously dissecting my personal meaning of ecosystem. Through my catalouge I find a few archetypical shots of ecosystems, supported by a wide and diverse set of studies focused upon the individual components that make up that ecosystem. The species.

But beyond, really, what have I been doing? What is that final thread? As pretentious as it may sound, I think I've been using the camera to define for myself the ideal natural order. From the component building blocks of species, up through the natural communities (ecosystems), and ultimately up to the wide landcsape level. Nothing conscience, but in retrospect, it looks like the ultimate theme of the work.

And there is a place for us in there. Sure, our footprint through my lens is often the mossy gravestone, but what I think that says is, our footprint, in my mind, has simply moved past the apex of fitting the natural order. I think the bigger theme of the anthropomorphic has definite roots of Old New England. And that ideal is simply waning now.

So that's how I hope to use this site. To organize a series of photographs that explores one idea of an idealized natural order. Organized moving from the base, the "components" (often individual species studies), up to a level of "interaction" (multiple species in a natural setting), up to overviews of "natural communities" (ecosystems). Stepping back further, "landscapes" will be a broad overview of the connections, and looking back in, "footprints" will be how we may all fit in. Or not fit in.

That's a lot of words to say something that John Muir wrapped in a single sentence: "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." But then again, that's why Muir is Muir and I'm sitting anonymous behind a computer right now.

A work in progress that I'm sure will remain skeletal for some time as I get through sorting the thousands of images...