Anthropo[s]cenes
Whether or not we are officially in an “Anthropocene” epoch, the visual impact of human activity on the landscape can be avoided only in increasingly remote places. Certainly, the landscape available to the overwhelming percentage of the population will include human-wrought elements.
Can beauty be pursued even in vistas in transition or in those already transformed? What are the boundaries between images that calm, concern, or disturb?
"Anthropo[s]cenes" explores classical landscape photography’s search for beauty -- but instead of resolutely excluding the man-made, the genre of "contemporary landscapes" highlights it. When such photographs succeed, they can grow the discipline. But we should also embrace those images that cause one to recoil, for those are the ones that may motivate better stewardship of the nature that remains.