Untitled

Description

In this untitled photograph from 1977, Charles Swedlund produced the layered image in the camera, rather than in the darkroom, by superimposing negatives or other printing techniques. “This distinction is important to me,” he noted, “I like and foster the associations produced by accidents or vaguely controlled situations rather than the ones consciously constructed.” Here, Swedlund’s method intersects neatly with the situation of these trees. Having taken root and grown up alongside a river, the gradual migration of the flow (or sudden rush of spring melt) inundated and killed them. The vague control that these pines once exerted on the landscape was undermined by the accident of their birthplace.