Wildfire. The word conjures feelings of fear, anxiety, awe, sadness and loss among many others. It is a force of nature that has been unjustly vilified by society. Because of that it has been unnaturally suppressed for decades, to the point where fire seasons like the summer of 2020 will start to become the new normal in the American West.
The fear and anxiety we feel from wildfires has molded our attitude towards it and cultivated our desire to protect the wildlands at all costs. I used these misplaced feelings of protection as inspiration for this series.
I converted the images in this series to infrared to make them appear as though they had been covered in fire retardant. Fire retardant is dropped from planes and helicopters by fire crews to slow down or minimize fire activity and is red/magenta in color. This appearance mirrors societies views of the wildlands and the desire to protect them to the nth degree. It also Ironically by overprotecting we have exacerbated the problem and deepened the unnatural cycle, making humans the problem not the fire. The fire is just a mad dog, we’re the one who let it off the leash.
