From the beginning, from our earliest tribal memories, there was a struggle between man and nature. This battle is the wellspring of myth and legend and our most fundamental rituals. Each society, each generation, addresses it anew. Sometimes man is placed at the periphery of this cosmic struggle, like Greek mortals, and sometimes man is central. But these foundational discussions are always more about man than nature, about how we organize ourselves and how we view the universe.



Today, in the West, many believe humans are finally winning the conflict and will soon conquer the planet; they use words such as rape and pillage, metaphors of rout. Sadly, these assertions are merely another form of human arrogance. ??It is self-evident that nature will prevail in the end. Events such as floods and earthquakes are dramatic demonstrations of the planet’s redemptive powers. Mother earth—nature—is relentless. She is patient, but in the end she cleanses herself of man’s works, utterly, and like Melville’s Maldive shark, without pity or remorse.



And yet, nature does so with whimsy sometimes. She rearranges in colorful and symmetrical patterns. There is a certain sad but also uplifting beauty in these catastrophes and erosions, the spectacle of reclamation. That is what I am trying to capture. ??These photographs are part of an ongoing project on nature’s preeminence.



These photographs were taken between 2008 and 2011 in Iowa, Louisiana, Texas, North Dakota, Italy, Haiti, Iceland, Japan, New York, Vermont, and New Jersey.