Applying to Marion International Fellowship for $18,000 to Photograph The Irrevocably Scarred Landscape in the West

The West’s spectacular energy boom has finally gone bust. And with fuel prices declining, the dream seekers are departing, leaving the landscape irrevocably scarred.

“West: Lost World,” is a journey exploring this changed land. Using photography, music, fictional text, presentations and apps, I will tell the story of the impact of oil, coal and gas production in Western wilderness areas.  The approach is interdisciplinary; the voice personal and poetic; the photos, music and reading to be presented as salon-type performances in the communities I visit. Inspired by the Chautauqua Institute, I’d like to share ideas and culture with the community, using my personal journey through the landscape of the West.

The photographic trip includes visits to three key energy producing centers of the West: Wyoming’s Powder Ridge Basin, the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota and Canada’s Athabasca Oil Sands. My focus will mostly be the landscape at night, where atmospheric light paints a haunting evocation of human alienation.