Contemplating the Anthropocene

Over the past few years I've tried to shift my focus away from protests, events, and breaking news photography in hopes that I might return to more traditional documentary/fine art work. As time has passed I've become more interested in the changing landscape we find ourselves existing and/or constructing in contemporary America.

Lately, I'm interested in how our constructed landscape specifically reflects our cultural values and priorities. Here are the questions I've been trying to visually explore: How does our built environment interact with existing landscapes and ecologies? How does the built environment affect our social interactions in any given space or place? What's our relationship with our public spaces and civic spaces? What happens when our constructed landscapes are divorced from our cultural histories and traditions?

I've got a million and one ideas swirling in my head. Here are a handful of images that have emerged as I slowly venture deeper into the ideas and the inevitable questions they raise. This work is a continuation of my explorations of the New Topographics movement that I previously posted about. With any luck, I'll be pulling this project together (possibly hanging a show somewhere) in the coming months.

Click to enlarge.

The landscape of Vermont is changing. With any luck, these images will spark a conversation around what mechanisms are driving that change. The tourist-driven economy has fetishized the rolling hills and Green Mountains with postcard perfect imagery of quaint villages and villagers, but this is a false image that we've been selling to the tourists and to ourselves. It's time to re-imagine the creative output concerning the Vermont Landscape and revise our relationship to the land we've been left to manage.

Check out more of my work at my website, Like my page on Facebook, and follow me on Twitter.

East Mountain Radar Installation

So this is a particularly odd set of photos. A few friends and I took a long drive and hike out into the middle of nowhere to search for an abandoned radar installation.

Formerly meant to track Soviet aircraft coming over the pole and down the eastern seaboard, East Mountain has been abandoned since the mid-late sixties. Much of it looks like something out of mad max (with a healthy dose of teenage graffiti for good measure).

I've no idea if I'll ever use these images for anything, but it was a fun way to spend the weekend!

For more of Dylan's work visit is Facebook page, Follow him on Twitter, listen to his podcasts, and (of course) visit his website.

New Project, New Aesthetic, New Topography

Hello Everyone,

I've recently begun the first real project-based shooting since the fateful summer of 2012 that many of you may remember. It's taken a good long time to rebuild things but I've finally lit the fuse on a another project that considers the Human Altered Landscape. I'll spare you the full thesis here, but one of the questions that I'm orbiting around is that of accountability as it relates to the landscapes we've created.

Without further ado, these images are from the town of Websterville, Vermont (click to enlarge).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more work by Dylan Kelley visit his website, follow him on Facebook, and Twitter via @Livefromground.

Slow Democracy: Photographing Local Government

In recent months, I've been taken with a profound interest in local government and the "slow democracy" style of decision making so familiar to most New England-ers. Whether it's citizens talking about resistance to a proposed pipeline through their town, City Councilors adjusting and tinkering with local ordinances, or even the occasional church supper; I believe that photographing and covering these kinds of events with the same journalistic/documentary energy and enthusiasm has been one of the more intriguing experiences of the past year or so.

Not am I now equipped with a better understanding of a myriad of issues but I'm also granted the fantastic opportunity to talk with my fellow citizens about what is on their minds regarding their communities. This is where great journalism and storytelling has always originated from: community members engaged in discourse with one another. So often, I feel that contemporary "mainstream" gloss over this and fixate on the figures of power in government, industry, and elsewhere. So seldom are the occasions that the voices and concerns of everyday citizens covered as frequently and intimately as those of conventional "deciders" and decision makers. Additionally, the process of photographing meetings; hearings; and discussions gives me the tremendous aesthetic challenging of visualizing discourse (usually in less that satisfactory lighting conditions). It's also more challenging to come away from a relatively unexciting meeting with an image that (upon looking for a moment) is capable of implying the fatigue, uncertainty, and tension that exists just beneath the surface.

That said, here are some image from a recent meeting of the Burlington City Council Ordinance Committee. Be prepared to see related images of Discourse, Dissent, and Dissonance in the coming months.

-Dylan

To see more work by Dylan Kelley visit his website, Facebook page, and column at Vermont Commons. You may also follow Dylan on Twitter via @LiveFromGround