Air Variations is a novel history of light and air in open spaces surrounding the Connecticut River in southeastern Vermont. These color field photographs were made in a sprawling field outside the house where I live, at an orchard across the river, and at an observatory up the hill. By hinging this work on weather, I leave each photograph to chance.
I work primarily in the blue hours before dawn and at dusk when changes of light and air are intense. The materials I photograph are a piece of clear glass against white paper. These reflect the quality of light and air around them. The colors in these images come from ambient light. By photographing these nearly-characterless materials in the same places at the same times of day over a period of years, I aim to see how many differences can be drawn strictly by daily changes of atmosphere.
Photography necessarily leaves out more than it describes about a given subject. I push this aspect of the medium by winnowing the visual world down bare bones. In this I show time as a concrete thing. These images show how a place can be represented sheerly by its most ephemeral characteristics as they shift over time.
