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.