honorable mention
Lucille Harris united states
title
Arrowrock Reservoir
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entry description
This series was taken in the summer of 2018 on Arrowrock Reservoir in Idaho. The geology of the region is highly susceptible to erosion and the reservoir has had significant impacts along its margins, creating dramatic wave lines that become visible during the annual water level draw down. This photo series attempts to juxtapose the aesthetic aspects of the erosion lines against the ecological damage they represent. It challenges us to find beauty, even in things we are not naturally drawn to. The summer of 2018 was a bad year for wild fires. The hazy quality of the air was caused by heavy smoke from the fires.about the photographer
I have been a professional archaeologist for twenty years but have maintained a lifelong interest in photography. I began my photographic journey as a high school student when my father gave me an old half frame 35 mm Olympus-Pen camera he had bought while serving in Vietnam. He had an affection for black and white photography and through that immersed me in the magic of developing, when we would inconvenience the rest of the household by sealing off the only bathroom to transform it into a dark room in order to develop my newest sets of film. I was slow to adopt the digital camera, in part because of the strong affection I had for those formative years with my father and the strong emotional resonance film had for me. Although I have made the conversion and found new dimensions to the artistic possibilities of photography in the process, I am extremely grateful for those early years where working in film forced me to understand many of the technical aspects of photography. Today, my preferred camera is a mirrorless Olympus Pen-F with a 17 mm lens. I am not going to lie, my initial impulse for buying this camera was entirely based in nostalgia for my old 35 mm half-frame, given the strong resemblance in form between the two. Despite that less than sound rationale for the purchase, the camera has been everything I wanted from it and reinvigorated my love of photography as an art that was initially born through that old film camera. I approach much of my photographic work through the idea of "translation", or helping people see familiar things in new ways, with a focus on black and white landscapes and abstract images.back to gallery