The photographer John Hirsch wrote this about his Harvard Forest residency:
“The Harvard Forest is a research forest that has been owned and operated by Harvard University since 1907. The Forest offers a place where times’ passage is more consciously studied than almost anywhere else on the planet. A place where technology and nature are so viscerally and overtly entwined that cables and wires emerge from the ground and descend from the sky, where trees are wrapped in plastic and metal and the growth and movements of all things are tracked with unending precision. Like the work that happens in the forest, this portfolio seeks to find a balance between description and intervention. Ranging from pure document to a more lyrical approach, this project embraces the descriptive power of details present while acknowledging the ineffable quality of time on place. In this range and variety, the images impose a set of visual hierarchies that diverge from the structure imposed on this place by scientists and replace it with another. This project has much in common with those of the scientists: This work is about a desire to understand, describe and predict the evolutions of our surroundings while showing reverence for the possibility of sublime moments in a place.”
More can be found at his website: http://www.johnhirsch.com/John_Hirsch_Photographs/Home.html