Burn Scar is a personal project that documents land recovery after wildfire in the American Southwest. The Hermit’s Peak-Calf Canyon Fire was merciless when it raged over the mountain on April 22, 2022. Extreme fire conditions, extreme drought, and extreme winds with gusts up to 85 mph drove the wildfire to become the largest in New Mexico history. Our property was reduced to a burn scar, the charred land left behind after a wildfire. This project follows the cycles of land recovery and our efforts to practice regenerative post-fire recovery on private land.
I am interested in exploring the human relationship with the natural environment through landscape photography, which I make with a Holga 120 film camera. The toy camera’s soft focus, light leaks, and vignetting create a painterly effect that suggests an idealized landscape in contrast to the context of natural disaster. For this project, that contrast is meant to highlight a landscape in transition and, ultimately, to ask what it means to rebuild in a future shaped by land resilience.
