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Images
#Benjamin Dimmitt
#black and white
#books
#local weather disaster
#Florida
#landscapes
“Lifeless palm in creek” (2021). All photos © Benjamin Dimmitt, shared with permission
In a single picture, lifeless palm leaves dangle from a desiccated trunk and skim the floor of a creek, making the crispy, lifeless fronds soggy with water. In one other, a diptych highlights the identical shoreline photographed 18 years aside, the latter sparse and sickly compared to its thriving predecessor.
Taken in stark black-and-white, these scenes are a couple of of many captured by Benjamin Dimmitt over the past three many years. They doc the immense ecological modifications of Chassahowitzka Nationwide Wildlife Refuge, roughly 70 miles north of Tampa on Florida’s Gulf Coast, and are actually compiled in a forthcoming e book that approaches the local weather disaster with uncooked, unwavering honesty.
Slated for launch in September from the College of Georgia Press, An Unflinching Look: Elegy for Wetlands highlights how the area has undergone dramatic modifications because the 2010s when saltwater started to infiltrate sources of contemporary water as a result of rising sea ranges, over-pumping the underground aquifer, and normal contamination of the realm. “Because the local weather disaster worsens, my pictures present wetlands which can be now not an ecosystem in transition however now a destroy, an almost barren, treeless salt marsh,” Dimmitt tells Colossal of his greater than three-decade mission bearing witness to this destruction. “The one vegetation thriving now are grasses, salt-loving mangroves, and the poisonous algae that has flourished with the rise of phosphates and different fertilizers within the aquifer.”
“View Downstream,” prime (2004), backside (2022)
Though he’s at the moment primarily based in Asheville, Dimmitt is a Florida native, and his profound respect for the state’s ecosystems and want to protect its pure life is obvious in his photographs. Whereas earlier photos present broad swaths of land, at present, he primarily focuses on what’s left of the salt-addled forests, zeroing in on the barren limbs and cracked, gnarled roots of downed timber. The photographs are poignant reminders of the life we’ve already misplaced because of the local weather disaster and that, whereas a lot harm has already been achieved, there’s nonetheless extra to avoid wasting.
Pairing greater than 90 photographs with contributions from scientists and writers, the e book is a broad-reaching examination of a broken ecosystem. It additionally means that what’s taking place in Florida is indicative of a a lot bigger downside. “The coastal inundation on the Chassahowitzka is a bellwether for low-lying coasts all over the place,” Dimmitt says. “What I’ve photographed is going on all world wide. As our planet continues to develop into hotter, the glacial melting and rising seas will solely worsen.”
An exhibition of An Unflinching Look will open the brand new Wild Area Gallery in St. Petersburg, Florida, for its inaugural present this October and likewise be on view at Asheville Artwork Museum in November. Dimmitt will likely be touring the southeast U.S. for a e book tour this fall, and you could find information about that on his web site. Till then, An Unflinching Look: Elegy for Wetlands is on the market for pre-order.
“Late Solar, Blue Run” (2020)
“View Upstream,” prime (2004), backside (2022)
“Blue Wreck Nonetheless Life 2” (2020)
“Diagonal timber in creek” (2021)
“Decrease Crawford Creek,” prime (1988), backside (2014)
#Benjamin Dimmitt
#black and white
#books
#local weather disaster
#Florida
#landscapes
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