Exploded Views are intimate photographs of fires in controlled situations. These close-up images focus on the physics behind fire behavior only moments after ignition, looking specifically at how it spreads. Taking its title from technical drawings of objects, that shows the relationship to the assembly of various parts, this series highlights our fascination with fire, and how it influences our relationship with the environment.
Hot spots burn across the mountains against the glow of Los Angeles in the distance. The Bobcat Fire burned over one hundred eighty square miles in the San Gabriel Mountains immediately north of Los Angeles in the summer of 2020. It prompted evacuation orders in several communities, destroyed several homes, and contributed to poor air quality in the Los Angeles basin for weeks.
By illuminating the vegetation at risk of burning from wildfire, this piece highlights how fire is a natural and necessary part of the forest ecosystem.
Exploded Views are intimate photographs of fires in controlled situations. These close-up images focus on the physics behind fire behavior only moments after ignition, looking specifically at how it spreads. Taking its title from technical drawings of objects, that shows the relationship to the assembly of various parts, this series highlights our fascination with fire, and how it influences our relationship to the environment.
The emergency lights of US Forest Service Fire Engines illuminate the mountain landscape while the central front of the fire approaches rapidly.
A wildfire high in the Eastern Sierra Mountains near Mt Whitney creates an intense sunset while the lights of car headlights illuminate vegetation in the foreground.
A record hot summer and a dry fall set the stage for the most destructive fires in the state's history. In this image, the Woolsey fire burns near Los Angeles, California, as seen from a suburban backyard in West Hills, an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County. The photograph was made on assignment for The New Yorker Magazine to accompany a global warming story by Bill McKibben.
Each image in this series represents an intentional effort to obscure a visual composition, rendering it difficult for the viewer to decipher scale, place, and other formal elements often found in landscape photography. The meanings of the aggressive and voluminous plumes of smoke that envelop much of the images may be understood, or attributed in many ways — as political smokescreens, fueled by fear that shroud the truth. Or, as explosive fits of social unrest in a metaphorical battle between newly-awakened hatred and feelings of shock, helplessness, and utter dismay. The clouds also recall that the air we breath is under a renewed threat from weakening environmental regulations as it battles against industrial toxins. Yet, no matter the interpretation, the controlled burns that create these smoke plums – like all fires metaphorical and real– always come to an end. Sometimes this might happen spectacularly, sometimes unexpectedly in a fizzle, but to a conclusion nonetheless, and this surreal, post-factual moment in history that inspired this project will be no exception. As the clouds still gather, the extent of the damage remains to be seen, making it impossible to not take sides while contemplating the dark spectacle of it all.
As the Fish Fire burns in the background near Duarte, CA, local men continue their nightly basketball routine. The dramatic and the unseen, emphasizing the banality and helplessness of our individual experiences of climate change. The Fish Fire started from the sparks of a fatal automobile accident in the summer of 2016. It eventually consumed 5,399 acres before containment by the Los Angels County Fire Department.
Wildflowers photographed on location during the California super bloom overtaken by smoke. This battle is a statement regarding political smokescreens, weakening environmental regulation, and the threat of social unrest.
A helicopter flies through a large smoke column at the La Tuna Fire in Los Angeles.
A month after the La Tuna Fire, new growth breaks through the ashes. Termed "fire followers," these small plants are the first phase in natural chaparral regeneration in the fire cycle. If climate change prevents enough rain from drenching the moonscape, however, the plants will not regrow.
Onlookers watch the 2017 La Tune Fire, Los Angeles' most significant fire in 50 years, burn in the Verdugo Mountains in Los Angeles.
Each image in this series represents an intentional effort to obscure a visual composition, rendering it difficult for the viewer to decipher scale, place, and other formal elements often found in landscape photography. The meanings of the aggressive and voluminous plumes of smoke that envelop much of the images may be understood, or attributed in many ways — as political smokescreens, fueled by fear that shroud the truth. Or, as explosive fits of social unrest in a metaphorical battle between newly-awakened hatred and feelings of shock, helplessness, and utter dismay. The clouds also recall that the air we breath is under a renewed threat from weakening environmental regulations as it battles against industrial toxins. Yet, no matter the interpretation, the controlled burns that create these smoke plums – like all fires metaphorical and real– always come to an end. Sometimes this might happen spectacularly, sometimes unexpectedly in a fizzle, but to a conclusion nonetheless, and this surreal, post-factual moment in history that inspired this project will be no exception. As the clouds still gather, the extent of the damage remains to be seen, making it impossible to not take sides while contemplating the dark spectacle of it all.
The La Tuna Fire in the Verdugo Mountains in Los Angeles.
The super moon as seen from the burn zone of the La Tuna Fire.
Exploded Views are intimate photographs of fires in controlled situations. These close-up images focus on the physics behind fire behavior only moments after ignition, looking specifically at how it spreads. Taking its title from technical drawings of objects, that shows the relationship to the assembly of various parts, this series highlights our fascination with fire, and how it influences our relationship to the environment.
In Controlled Burns, swirling and imposing clouds of smoke contend with one another in a physical battle between diametrically opposing explosions of black and white. From a structuralist point of view, this imagery serves as metaphor for binary opposition, e.g. good vs. evil or day vs. night, yet this is not the sole line of inquiry. Inspired by the smoke signals of the recent Papal conclave which uses smoke as form of basic communication, this series is apart of a larger artistic practice focusing on human relationships to nature.
A cloud of exhaust from a Space X rocket launch appears in the twilight skies over Santa Barbara.
A bouquet of wildflowers collected from the side of the Interstate 5 freeway in Los Angeles contends with billowing. The blooms wilt as symbolic harbingers of unrest and environmental destruction.
The Holy Fire was a wildfire that burned in the Cleveland National Forest in Orange and Riverside Counties, California.
A Space X rocket launch into the sunset from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Lompac, CA.
Fire is a powerful natural force that we harness for greater good, and it is the only Classical element, that we can create on demand, yet when out of control it has the potential for grave destruction. Controlled burns, is a visual representation of an inherent duality in how we interact with nature, symbolizing our desire to conquer and control nature, reminding us that sometimes we must fight fire with fire.
In Controlled Burns, swirling and imposing clouds of smoke contend with one another in a physical battle between diametrically opposing explosions of black and white. From a structuralist point of view, this imagery serves as metaphor for binary opposition, e.g. good vs. evil or day vs. night, yet this is not the sole line of inquiry. Inspired by the smoke signals of the recent Papal conclave which uses smoke as form of basic communication, this series is apart of a larger artistic practice focusing on human relationships to nature.
The Silverado Fire burns incredibly close to the Portola Springs Subdivision in Irvine, CA.