A meditation on the harshness and beauty of wildfires by photographer Ian Bates. Between 2014 and 2020, Bates traveled along the West Coast of the United States and started photographing a landscape increasingly affected by wildfires. However, rather than capturing the typical depictions of roaring flames, Bates focused instead on quiet moments in the aftermath.
“There is a moment after a wildfire burns but before humans return, where the land and forests are both beautiful and terrifying.”
Seemingly suspended out of time, Bates’s photographs explore this liminal stage between calm and violence, beauty and anxiety. “The Weight Of Ash” includes a poem by Caitlin Lorraine Johnson and essay by Daniel Gumbiner. It has just been released with Deadbeat Club.
