Maybe, by its own passage, “time” has made itself more sharply focused as the real subject of my photography. I’ve come to realize this with increasing clarity in the past few years as my collection of “portraits” of local glacial erratic boulders made the point so obvious, even I could no longer ignore it. Visual indications of time’s passage range from the subtle manifestations of geologic and climatic change to the more recent and observable impact of man. In New England, all of this is being swallowed by both the regrowth of forests and ever spreading suburbs.
This continuing series has been shot primarily in Southeastern Connecticut and Rhode Island. The boulders’ implacable presence is a testament to the power of glacial ice, whose melting edge some 18,000 years ago dropped these massive stones in place. As the ice retreated, and the ensuing landscape reforested, the boulders were “witness” to the changing flora and fauna, the population by Native American tribes and the arrival of Europeans. To me the photographs are about landscape and change manifested in durations of time we are not normally conscious of in our day to day life.
I have photographed them in panoramic format, hoping to catch their context as well as their “personality.” The stones themselves have an impressive impact and their current situation can be seen as yet another of a long line of changes in the landscape.