The pictures in this post were taken in a forest that burned during the Labor Day 2020 fires in Oregon’s Western Cascades. But they are not conventional pictures, they are made from the forest itself.

The prints are carbon transfer prints, a process that was developed in1855 by the French artist Alphonse Poitevin. The process consists of an emulsion made from water, food gelatin, sugar, a light sensitizer and pigment. A UV light is used to expose the emulsion though a negative using a contact printing frame.

I made the pigment from biochar which is almost 100% pure carbon made in an industrial pyrolizer from trees burned during the Labor Day 2020 fires. The areas of the prints that are white are the underlying paper, the areas in black are biochar, the remnants of the trees.

My hope is that in some sense the pigment and carbon prints are a testament to the resiliency of the forest.

This exhibit documents the impact of forest fires in Oregon’s Western Cascades, revealing both the devastation and the remarkable resilience of nature. Wildfires are often seen as purely destructive, yet they are also a natural force of renewal, shaping ecosystems in profound ways.

Dr. Chad Higgins, Associate Professor of Agriculture at Oregon State University, and his team are hoping to learn which crops can be grown under solar panels, improving crop production while generating clean, renewable, low-cost energy.

Jonas Parker and his colleagues with the U.S Bureau of Land Management are hoping to find out.