Disappearing Green Space

This series, funded by a McKnight Photography Fellowship, is about how our American landscape is being quickly and profoundly changed in a permanent way by rampant over-development. Although the outer edge of suburbia is being hit hardest, it is happening in all areas of the country, both rural and urban.
What will be lost and what will be gained if these places are allowed to be developed? Does development of the land change or remove it’s ‘spirit’? Does that then translate to our own ability to connect with spirit or a sense of the divine? Or are they just places to be used for the common good and inevitable as a byproduct of ‘progress’?
My intent is not to document the destruction of forests, fields and vacant lots but to explore the emotional and visual impact this brings and then to share this with the viewer. My desire is to photograph how these spaces ‘feel’ rather than how they ‘look’. I want to experience, interpret and know for myself what we are losing forever. I want to share that experience, through my photographs, with the viewer.
Embracing the oldest and newest technology, but only for the sake of aesthetics, I have used a wooden 4x5 field camera, with Polaroid Type 55 negatives. These negatives, themselves often thrown away, will be washed and preserved and then drum scanned. Gallery Print then made the archival prints on an Epson 9000 printer with carbon based inks on Somerset rag paper.

-Doug Beasley

---

Click on any image to enlarge. Click on enlarged image to return here.

Available as 16 x 20 and 24 x 30 Prints $550 and $850 respectively. Contact GalleryPrint to purchase.