Attunements to the compositions & decompositions of an oak savannah

How does conventional ecology render nature visible? This set of images asks: How to do ecology otherwise? If traditional nature photography captures living bodies and turns them into objects of aesthetic and scientific interest, these kinesthetic images gesture to a different kind of account of the living world. These images are attunements. They are generated in the act of moving with and being moved by the beings and doings of a black oak savannah. As relational images they document the energetics of an encounter, the push and pull between bodies. Rather than capturing phenomena, these images make it clear that it is the photographer who is caught: captivated, they are the ones who hitch a ride on what is becoming and coming undone. The rotting logs, frilled mushrooms, crumbling leaves, ancient sands, and greening grasses are not discrete things, they are happenings taking shape through deep time and in the ephemeral moments of now, and now, and now. It is the photographer who must learn how to keep pace with these rhythms through her body.