The Atlas Fire

Stuart Palley, American

The Atlas Fire, 2017

This photograph is taken from photographer Stuart Palley’s book, Terra Flamma: Wildfires at Night in which Palley depicts the California wildfires and their subsequent effects through photographs. This image in particular is of the The Atlas Fire which burned over 25,000 acres of land in Napa and Solano counties in California in 2017. The colors of the photograph—the yellows and greens of the lit-up vegetation juxtaposed against the reds and oranges of the blaze—contrast sharply, giving the image an almost surreal quality. The illumination produced by the fire in the background creates an eerie yet ethereal glow which speaks to the nature of wildfire photographs and their accompanying aesthetics (a “burning aesthetics” in the words of TJ Demos), a key topic explored by all of this week’s readings. Label by Jay Jolles

El Portal Fire from Tunnel View

Stuart Palley, American

El Portal Fire from Tunnel View, 2014

This photo is part of a series of photographs that the artist Palley has been collecting into the book Terra Flamma, which he released in 2018, documenting the wildfires across California. The image here was made through a long exposure view of the slope as fire raged on. This image presents the sheer scale of the fires, potentially at the cost of producing a distance to their threat. The fire is massive in this image, and its hotspots appear akin to an inverted starfield, producing inverse constellations of destruction on the landscape. Forests become isolated stands of trees, the sky becomes a monochrome orange, reflecting the sheer size of the fires and the devastation they have been able to wreak. Label by Frank Kennedy