The New Arcadians
Photographs from Scout Camp

Snakes, square knots, pocket knives, and poison ivy. An ethnography of Scouts at summer camp and the making of a young naturalist.

A Natural History of 'Watership Down'
LITERARY LANDSCAPES VOL.1
Tracing the paths of Hazel, Bigwig, Strawberry, and Fiver throughout the pastures, woodlands, and hedgerows near the author's home in Hampshire, England.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Catskill Calendar: A Natural History of 'My Side of the Mountain'
LITERARY LANDSCAPES VOL.2
Running away from the city and exploring the Catskill region
of central New York in the shadow of Sam Gribley's mountain. Novel and illustrations by Jean Craighead George
WORK IN PROGRESS

By definition, landscapes are not the land itself, but our many ways of seeing land. Informed by interwoven threads of nature, histories and cultures, landscapes and storytelling are inextricable linked. Stories need settings, and land, if it is to be a landscape, require stories – a few of which end up being published. Some authors understand this relationship especially well; the effect of which greatly deepens my own experience of their words. After discovering a great and resonating book, I can hear myself and others expressing something akin to, “The setting was like a character.”

Literary Landscapes uses the familiar filters of literature and storytelling as lenses through which to interpret and experience landscapes. It's an opportunity to walk in the footsteps of some of my personal favorite literary characters and authors; or books whose relationship to land and history are particularly revealing with regards to the ways we might see particular landscapes today. Likewise, I hope the project will help viewers gather a more specific bioregional appreciation for the unique character of these lands and landscapes, and in the process even develop better senses for rediscovering their own.

These few are in no way fully inclusive of even my own varied tastes, much less of any genre, period, or interest group. They are only a few titles that played some meaningful role in my own narrative. As such, exploring their themes, characters, and geographies on the page and on the path has become a means of understanding myself better as well. If you too have found some connection with any of these works or landscapes, I hope above all that these photographs may serve to deepen that relationship further.

Borderlands of Burma
Mae Sot, Thailand & Myawaddy, Myanmar

Mongolia
Khungai Nuruu National Park, Arkhangai, Mongolia

Tibetan Stories: the photographs
Dharamsala & Bodh Gaya, India