Delta - 2008-2012 - Inkjet prints - 51"x30"

The impact of the ubiquitous and the diffuse is hard to comprehend. It is difficult to internalize changes so vast that they become the environment itself. The images comprising the series Delta are part of a long-term project photographing environments undergoing nearly invisible but massive man-made changes. Previous works have explored overgrazing in the desert west and the contrails left behind aircraft that often become man-made overcast.

The Mississippi River Delta is crisscrossed by thousands of man-made canals and ditches. These canals allow salt water to penetrate ever more deeply into the delta, killing the trees that anchor the wetlands. Erosion claims thousands of acres each year and the delta region is sinking at a rate of 4-5 feet per century.

The series Delta images the intersections of man-made waterways with the geological processes of the delta formation and erosion. It seeks to show the almost invisible process consuming the wetlands of southern Louisiana. These works portray what is absent, what has been lost, and reveal the increasing fragility and exposure we are placing ourselves in as we carve our lines into the delta.