“Written in Water.” All images © Paul Nicklen, shared with permission
It is a worldwide understanding in writing studies that to recount a disastrous event in literal and graphic detail may damper the purpose of the story by pushing the reader away. In order to elicit experiential feelings, writers often learn to employ tools and strategies such as metaphor, poeticism, and structure. This could moreover be understood as an exercise in empathy considering rather than gravity the reader to finger by summarizing the wits for them, the writer creates an environment where one can reach for closeness and esprit in their own ways.
Paul Nicklen, pioneering conservation photographer (previously), calls nature the first and greatest artist in his latest collection, the Delta Series. To expand Nicklens statement wideness disciplines, nature may moreover be the first and greatest writer. In the series, he captures the vestiges of the Colorado River that trickle, roar, and finally, trickle their way lanugo to Baja, Mexico. Though the silt itself is the site of tragedy, traces of freshwater gorgeously spread like branches, or fingerprints, or lungs, or as Nicklen writes, like veins.
“Arbol de Vida”
These lines not only tell the story of the megadrought, a term scientists use to describe the impact of the climate slipperiness since the year 2000 on an once dry Westas of June, both the U.S. and Mexican governments have well-set to release water from irrigation canals and restore the ecosystem in Bajabut they moreover craft the effects of reduced snowpack, thirstier soil, and higher temperatures into a grand metaphor for the interconnectedness of life. Even in the midst of ruin, nature speaks in symbols. With its last breath, the river reaches for its kin: the ocean. Unable to meet that immense body, the water carves its final words into the landscape. The familiar shape of its sprawl reminds us that we are inseparable, intimately woven into each other, and share responsibility for every living thing virtually us until the very end.
Nicklens Delta Series is on view as part of Evolve, which opens on October 1 at Hilton-Asmus Contemporary in Chicago. See increasingly of the photos on his website and Instagram.
“Arterial Shadows”
“Amber Crossroads”
“Painted Forest”
“Arterial Poetry”
