Shawnee
For years, I have been photographing landscapes in the Shawnee National Forest and environs. The symbolic image of the landscape has been a part of our heritage since the Hudson River School painters first glorified the American wilderness. There is a sense of spiritual renewal, new opportunity, and endless bounty to be found in their portrayal of nature. The photographer Linda Connor has spoken often of revealing “the sacred” in the landscape--searching for the experience of the sublime within nature. Robert Adams has written, “...a serious landscape picture is metaphor...what we hope for from the artist is help in discovering the significance of a place...We rely...on landscape photography to make intelligible to us what we already know. It is the fitness of a landscape to one’s experience of life’s condition and possibilities that finally makes a scene important or not.”
As controversy surrounding the uses, economic and recreational, of the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois continues, it is important to reflect upon the nature and condition of this place, to bring a visual record of this landscape to public attention, and to record the forest as it now stands. The twenty-first century now surrounds us. It promises to be a watershed mark in our environmental history. It is time to take stock of our natural heritage. The Shawnee itself is on the brink of change. Its future uses, now being debated, will shape its character and alter its image. The photograph can preserve a record of the forest as it now stands in a way no other medium can approach. Witness the Kinsey photographs of the great northwest woods of Washington and Oregon at the turn of the 19th century.
Edward Abbey wrote, “you stand for what you stand on!” I stand on and in the Shawnee National Forest. Landscape photographs have a long history of informing conscientious decision making in regard to American land use. This stretches back to the images of William Henry Jackson made in the late 1800’s in the area later designated as Yellowstone National Park. Ansel Adams’ photographs of California sequoias are credited with assisting in the establishing of Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. This tradition continues with photographers such as Mark Klett, Frank Gohlke, Robert Glenn Ketchum and others who have produced bodies of work reflecting on environmental issues. Writers such as Edward Abbey, Aldo Leopold, John McPhee, and Doug Peacock have eloquently expressed the importance of the presence of American wilderness. I place my work within this broader discourse. We have wild places in the Shawnee National Forest that must be protected and cherished. There are currently seven designated wilderness areas within the Shawnee with others under consideration.
The Shawnee is the only national forest in Illinois and is unknown to the great majority of Illinoisans. These photographs place the Shawnee National Forest in perspective as a unique Illinois landscape. A long-range goal is the production of a book portraying various aspects of the forest. I am investigating the geological, biological, historical, and cultural stories told in the landscape of the Shawnee. The images function as both metaphor and analog--what Douglas Hofstadter has referred to as an isomorphism or preservation of fundamental nature in translation to a new form.
I am looking at the forest in a holistic manner--acknowledging its physical beauty and its place in the cultural stories of its many and varied inhabitants. This is not a scientific investigation, though science forms the basis for portions of the project. It is, rather, an intimate chronicling of a landscape. The area bounded by the terminal moraine and the Mississippi and Ohio rivers is a diverse and eclectic mix of hardwood forest, cypress swamp, high bluffs, and lowland savanna found nowhere else in the United States. Exploring its significance is my privilege.
As controversy surrounding the uses, economic and recreational, of the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois continues, it is important to reflect upon the nature and condition of this place, to bring a visual record of this landscape to public attention, and to record the forest as it now stands. The twenty-first century now surrounds us. It promises to be a watershed mark in our environmental history. It is time to take stock of our natural heritage. The Shawnee itself is on the brink of change. Its future uses, now being debated, will shape its character and alter its image. The photograph can preserve a record of the forest as it now stands in a way no other medium can approach. Witness the Kinsey photographs of the great northwest woods of Washington and Oregon at the turn of the 19th century.
Edward Abbey wrote, “you stand for what you stand on!” I stand on and in the Shawnee National Forest. Landscape photographs have a long history of informing conscientious decision making in regard to American land use. This stretches back to the images of William Henry Jackson made in the late 1800’s in the area later designated as Yellowstone National Park. Ansel Adams’ photographs of California sequoias are credited with assisting in the establishing of Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. This tradition continues with photographers such as Mark Klett, Frank Gohlke, Robert Glenn Ketchum and others who have produced bodies of work reflecting on environmental issues. Writers such as Edward Abbey, Aldo Leopold, John McPhee, and Doug Peacock have eloquently expressed the importance of the presence of American wilderness. I place my work within this broader discourse. We have wild places in the Shawnee National Forest that must be protected and cherished. There are currently seven designated wilderness areas within the Shawnee with others under consideration.
The Shawnee is the only national forest in Illinois and is unknown to the great majority of Illinoisans. These photographs place the Shawnee National Forest in perspective as a unique Illinois landscape. A long-range goal is the production of a book portraying various aspects of the forest. I am investigating the geological, biological, historical, and cultural stories told in the landscape of the Shawnee. The images function as both metaphor and analog--what Douglas Hofstadter has referred to as an isomorphism or preservation of fundamental nature in translation to a new form.
I am looking at the forest in a holistic manner--acknowledging its physical beauty and its place in the cultural stories of its many and varied inhabitants. This is not a scientific investigation, though science forms the basis for portions of the project. It is, rather, an intimate chronicling of a landscape. The area bounded by the terminal moraine and the Mississippi and Ohio rivers is a diverse and eclectic mix of hardwood forest, cypress swamp, high bluffs, and lowland savanna found nowhere else in the United States. Exploring its significance is my privilege.