Turning to laser etching and CNC routing, I have created a series of photographs that address my anxiety for the future of our planet and seek to extend the capacity of the photographic image to depict a deeper truth. Traveling across the country, I have documented both the beautiful and the already disfigured landscapes of America, chronicling impacts from climate change that are sometimes obvious and other times invisible to the naked eye. The landscapes depicted comment on our denialist tendencies to see only what we want to believe—to deny our lifestyles are harming our planet and to see America as an enduring symbol of beauty, abundance and resilience. My photographs serve to disturb this pretense, layering climate change data visualizations and tales of its impacts which confront the viewer with a reality divergent from the one the camera alone can capture.


Laser etching allows me to use heat to burn into the surface of the photograph, an apt metaphor for how we collectively are searing away places with our continued use of fossil fuels to power modern life. By etching away parts or large swaths of an image, I can visualize both the vulnerability of natural spaces around us and illustrate what our choices deny future generations. Using a CNC (computer controlled) router, allows me to carve deeper into the photographic plane, creating opportunities to work more sculpturally with greater depth and scale.

Will There be Anything Left in 50 Years (Upper Mississippi River, MN)
2019, Laser Etched Archival Pigment Print, 20" x 30" (framed)

This image asks broadly how landscapes that we know will change due to climate change in one to two generations. What will be lost? Here a tree which foregrounds this vista of the iconic Mississippi River has been etched away. Coincidentially referencing water, the etching pattern eats away the image almost like a flooding coastline or body of water.

Will There be Anything Left in 50 Years (detail)
2019
Scorched (Mine Trucks, Thunder Basin Mine, Gillette, Wyoming, Grinnell Glacier Recession Topography, 1850-2011)
2019, Laser Cut Pigment Print on CNC Milled Pine Block, 20" x 30" (framed)

This is a photograph of the largest surface coal mine in North America, located in Wyoming. Placed inside it is a map of Grinnell Glacier from Glacier National Park that depicts its recession (decrease in size) since 1850. The lowest level outlines the glacier's approximate footprint today. Thankfully, using coal to produce electricity has begun to decline as wind and solar have become cheaper alternatives. However, coal continues to be a significant driver of climate change today stemming from the Industrial Revolution in 1760. The glacier's topographical history has been burned here to remind us of coal's lasting effect even when its source is far away from its point of impact.

10,000 Years of CO2 (near Marianna, FL)
2019, Laser Etched Archival Pigment Print, 20" x 30" (framed)

A disturbed landscape 100 miles inland from Hurricane Michael's 2018 landfall is etched by a graph of the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the past 10,000 years. Its dramatic increase in the last 200 years aligns with the onset of the industrial revolution.

Atlantic Hurricane Paths, 1985-2005 (Outerbanks, Frisco, NC)
2018, Laser Etched Archival Pigment Print, 20" x 30" (framed)

I grew up vacationing here. Burning 20 years of hurricane paths into the photograph highlights the Outer Bank's vulnerability to climate change. Increased temperatures, create storm intensification.

Atlantic Hurricane Paths (etching detail)
2018
In The Eye (installed)
2019, Laser Etched Archival Pigment Print, 20" x 28" (framed)
In The Eye
2019, Laser Etched Archival Pigment Print, 20" x 28" (framed)

I took this photograph of my nephew fishing at St. Joseph's Peninsula State Park, FL in 2017 during a family vacation. One year later, right where my nephew was fishing the park was cut in two by Hurricane Michael, a category 5 storm. Hurricane Michael's Wind Shear Map from satellite data (recorded before landfall) is etched into the surface of the photograph.

In The Eye (detail)
2019
Degrees of Extinction (installation layout)
2019, Laser Etched Archival Pigment Print, 10" x 13.5" (each)

This series reflects on the impact predicted to ecosystems as the global temperature rises by 1°-5° Celsius.

Degrees of Extinction - 1 degree
2019, Laser Etched Archival Pigment Print, 10" x 13.5"

My nephew holds a sand dollar. The unprecedented coral reef die offs illustrate that ocean ecosystem devastation is a reality with even small rise in the global temperature.

Degrees of Extinction - 2 degrees (detail)
2019, Laser Etched Archival Pigment Print, 10" x 13.5"

A 2019 study in Science found that since 1970, 25% of birds in North America are gone. 2°C warming threatens further decline.

Degrees of Extinction - 3 degrees
2019, Laser Etched Archival Pigment Print, 10" x 13.5"
Degrees of Extinction - 4 degrees (detail)
2019, Laser Etched Archival Pigment Print, 10" x 13.5"

Insects in the phylum arthropoda are one of the most successful class of animals on the planet. They serve incredibly important roles in ecosystems but at extreme temperature increases, even they become vulnerable.

Degrees of Extinction - 5 degrees
2019, Laser Etched Archival Pigment Print, 10" x 13.5"

If we warm the earth by 5°C, massive ecosystem failure and a mass extinction are predicted.

© Stefan Petranek 2024. An icompendium Site.

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