The Anthropocene Surveys Update

I’ve just made a major update to my project page for The Anthropocene Surveys, including adding four different geographical surveys. This project is part of my broader Annals of the Former World project focused on combating the destructive aspects of climate change. Please check it out if you’d like and let me know what you think!

Favorites of 2019 and of the Last Decade

Every year I try to select my favorite photographs of the year and I have finally (and belatedly) finished that task for 2019. I was trying to catch up on all of my photographs from my Western trip in the fall and that task is mostly complete. You’ll find the twelve photographs below in this post — let me know what you think!

A necessary disclaimer of this type of list is that it is subjective — this is what I love the most right now, and someone else looking at the same body of work would likely come up with a different list. Similarly, my own preferences can change as well, and on a different day I might choose different photographs.

I realized when doing this list that I’ve actually been making these lists for ten years, making a nice tidy decade of favorites. Since these lists existed in a wide range of locations, I decided to gather them up and put them all here in my website. You can find my decade of favorites starting from 2019 and counting backwards here, and my decade of favorites going forward in time here.

I found this process even more fascinating than a single year of work as it allows assessment of artistic style, taste, subject, and skill over time. Hopefully you won’t see my path as one of long and slow degradation!

Jackson Glacier #1, Glacier National Park, Montana (Copy)

Jackson Glacier #1, Glacier National Park, Montana

Andromeda Glacier #1, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada (Copy)

Andromeda Glacier #1, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada

Andromeda Glacier #3, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada (Copy)

Andromeda Glacier #3, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada

Mount Burgess #1, Yoho National Park, British Columbia, Canada (Copy)

Mount Burgess #1, Yoho National Park, British Columbia, Canada

Emerald Lake #1, Yoho National Park, British Columbia, Canada (Copy)

Emerald Lake #1, Yoho National Park, British Columbia, Canada

Takakkaw Falls #1, Yoho National Park, British Columbia, Canada (Copy)

Takakkaw Falls #1, Yoho National Park, British Columbia, Canada

Badlands Snowstorm #2 (Copy)

Badlands Snowstorm #2

Illuminations #183 (Copy)

Illuminations #183

Biota, Bodega Bay #1, California (Copy)

Biota, Bodega Bay #1, California

Pale Fire, Canto One, III (Copy)

Pale Fire, Canto One, III

Pale Fire, Canto One, IX (Copy)

Pale Fire, Canto One, IX

Pale Fire, Canto One, XIV (Copy)

Pale Fire, Canto One, XIV

Pyrotechnic Expanded

Illuminations #183

I’ve recently updated my online portfolio to include two new expansions of my Pyrotechnic project. Pyrotechnic was one of my first two projects and I worked on it between 2011 and 2016 until it reached a natural stopping point. Last year I went back to it, though, to explore color in addition to form and line. You can find the two spin-offs, Illuminations and Pyrotechnic Redux, on that portfolio page with examples from the portfolios now ready to explore.

Iceland Exhibition at Kingman Gallery

Fjallsjökull #5

I’m excited to announce the opening of my new solo exhibition at Kingman Gallery in Deer Isle, Maine. The exhibition is up and running now and extends through September 8th. We’re having an opening reception this coming Sunday, August 11th, from 2-5 pm.

The exhibition includes 11 framed pieces from my Iceland residency last summer, and you can check out work from all of the gallery artists as well. If you’d like to see more of my Iceland photographs from last summer as a sneak preview, I’ve finally put up a gallery of this work on my website.

Hope to see you Sunday!

Cosmographia

Cosmographia #2

I've recently released the newest addition to my Terra Incognita project -- Cosmographia. You can see this first set of twelve photographs here. Enjoy!

Favorites of 2017

Ouroboros #2

I've finally had a chance to pull together my favorite photographs that I took or created in 2017. I do love this exercise as it is a wonderful chance to look back at one's creative process for the year and to see which directions provided successful results. I should also emphasize the word favorite above, as any such list is entirely subjective (and subject to change as well).

So, in no particular order, here are my favorite photographs of 2017!

First up (above) is Ouroboros #2 from my Harmony of the Spheres project, my favorite creation as I started to explore color with this series. From the same series, I also love Ouroboros #1 below (using my photograph of the sun along with the star trails).

Ouroboros #1

Next up in my list of favorites is this photograph from the Painted Hills in Oregon, a place long on my photographic life-list that I finally visited this spring.

Painted Hills #1, Oregon, USA

I've been working on a new series called Salacia -- more about this soon, but the photograph below is from the series for which I have a particular affinity (especially when printed large). 

Salacia #1

I'm essentially done now with my long-term Adventures in Celestial Mechanics project, but one of my full moon photographs from this year will make my final edit, too, I suspect.

Moon When Cherries Turn Black I

I continue to work on my Codex Natura project, with the photograph below making my list for this year.

Codex Natura #24

Similarly, I love this new photograph in my East of the Sun, West of the Moon project.

Untitled #23, from the East of the Sun, West of the Moon project

I have a brand new project entitled Cosmographia, and these two photographs from that series make my favorites list for this year.

Cosmographia #2

Cosmographia #8

The photograph below is from Peaks Kinney State Park here in Maine.

Sebec Lake Study #1

...and also from Peaks Kinney is a much different photograph from my new Neptune series (coming soon).

Neptune #32

And last but not least is this cyanotype from my Harmony of the Spheres project.

Euclidean Sonata #1

Moon When Cherries Turn Black

Moon When Cherries Turn Black I

I just released five new photographs in my Adventures in Celestial Mechanics project. The five photographs are named after the Sioux name for the August Full Moon, Moon When Cherries Turn Black. Enjoy!

Moon When Cherries Turn Black II

Moon When Cherries Turn Black II

Moon When Cherries Turn Black IV

Moon When Cherries Turn Black V

New Work - The Euclidean Sonata

Euclidean Sonata #4

I've just published here the first images in my new piece of my Harmony of the Spheres project. The new piece is called the Euclidean Sonata and is still a work in progress. In a big departure for me, each photograph is a cyanotype (and created using the light of the Sun, our closest star). Enjoy!

Ouroboros Sonata

I recently released the beginnings of a new piece in my Harmony of the Spheres project, the Ouroboros Sonata. I have three photographs in this piece so far and it is very much still a work in progress, but I'm extremely excited about its potential. You can see all three here. Let me know what you think!

Ooroboros #2

New Codex Natura Work

Codex Natura #20

I'm finally starting to update my galleries with work from the last year, and I'm kicking things off with two new photographs from my Codex Natura project. You can see these and other selections from the project here.

Codex Natura #21

Favorites of 2016

Prelude #3

Every January I like to reflect back upon my work from the previous year (here is the list from last year), an exercise that I find both useful and enjoyable. As part of this process I choose my favorite photographs of the year. With now five active projects, choosing a dozen photographs was not easy.

I'm going to start off with my favorites from my newest project, Harmony of the Spheres. The photograph leading this post is a bit of a transition one for me as it bridges in a way my night photographs, my full moon photographs, and this newest project.

One of the key aspects of this project is musicality, and this next one best embodies that for me:

Prelude #2

This photograph is another favorite and represents more of the analytical and constructed work aspects of this project.

Prelude #12

My East of the Sun, West of the Moon project is also continuing, and I've chosen two photographs from this project. This first one is from my artist residency at Chiricahua National Monument, and I just love that hint of the last bit of sunset light.

Untitled #21

This photograph is one I love for its celestial feel...

Untitled #20

From my Pyrotechnic project I have two new favorites, too. I'm continually surprised that even after many years of photographing fireworks shows I end up with new looks.

Pyrotechnic #255

Pyrotechnic #262

My Adventures in Celestial Mechanics project has three of my favorites from 2016. This first one is the Mourning Moon from November and is a big departure for me, with the moon being so bright that it is blown out (something I generally avoid). I love how powerful the pure white moon is in this photograph.

Mourning Moon I

Another favorite moon photograph from 2016...the clouds were wonderful that evening.

Bone Moon I

And the Quiet Moon from January 2016...I have no idea how this will translate on the screen, but I absolutely love the print. And I think we've found out how far towards abstract I can go with this series.

Quiet Moon I

And, last but not least, these are my two favorites from my Codex Natura project, both from here in Camden and both with a celestial vibe.

Codex Natura #20

Codex Natura #21

Mourning Moon

Today I've released three new photographs in my Adventures in Celestial Mechanics project. These three are from November 2016 and I've chosen the Mourning Moon name for the group. 

Mourning Moon I is an unusual one for me as I've let the details of the moon go to pure white. I love the color and overall feel of it, though, and the purity of that white moon strikes me as quite powerful.

Mourning Moon I

Mourning Moon II

Mourning Moon III

New East of the Sun, West of the Moon Photographs

I've just released new work in my East of the Sun, West of the Moon project. These four new pieces are the first in this project from my artist residency last year at Chiricahua National Monument in Arizona. I'm very excited to start expanding this project beyond the Maine landscape.

Untitled #17

Untitled #18

Untitled #21

Untitled #22

New Pyrotechnic Photographs

I've been working on many of my photographs from this year, and I can now introduce new work from my Pyrotechnic project from this summer's fireworks shows. I'm continually surprised that I keep on finding new "looks" for this project. Let me know what you think, and enjoy!

Pyrotechnic #262

Pyrotechnic #263

Pyrotechnic #264

Pyrotechnic #265

Pyrotechnic #266

Pyrotechnic #267

Pyrotechnic #268

New Adventures in Celestial Mechanics images

I've just finished up a new batch of photographs for my Adventures in Celestial Mechanics project. First up is February's Bone Moon, a few of which I've included below:

Bone Moon I

Bone Moon II

Bone Moon IV

Also in February was the Storm Moon, from Marshall Point...

Storm Moon

...and lastly, these two photographs are from March's Moon of Wakening.

Moon of Wakening I

Moon of Wakening II

Harmony of the Spheres (and a brief exhibition at PhoPa)

I'm very excited to announce my newest body of work, Harmony of the Spheres. It is one I've been thinking about and struggling with for years, and I've finally started to crack it. This is very much just the beginning, too -- here in my underground lair I'm already working on new variations of this. Using motion of celestial objects such as stars as my source, I'm inspired by myriad things such as classical views of the Universe, music, and printmaking.

You can see the first photographs from the series here, and you can read my project statement here.

This work will be exhibited in a group exhibition at PhoPa Gallery in Portland, ME, as part of the Maine Media Student Exhibition (I worked on this project as I was auditing the Projects course). I'll be at the opening in Portland Friday 5-7 pm, and the exhibition extends from June 1st - June 11th. I've seen everyone's work develop during the course and there are some truly wonderful photographs in this show, so definitely check it out if you are in the Portland area.

Favorites of 2015

Codex Natura #1

It is once again that time of year when I, along with many other artists, reflect back upon the work from the previous year. I find it both useful and enjoyable to review my work and choose my favorite photographs from the year.

2015 was a very successful year for me creatively, I believe, as I continued advancing my previous two long-term projects (Pyrotechnic and Adventures in Celestial Mechanics) and also launched two new projects, Codex Natura and East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Given these four big projects, I found it satisfying to choose three images from each body of work to create my list of 12 favorite photographs of 2015.

As time goes on, other images may replace some of these in the end, but these are the images that tell the story of 2015.

I'm going to start with my Codex Natura project. This project has been extraordinarily fun as I seek out new material to use for the project and also continue to experiment with printing techniques for these very dark images. Besides the photograph leading off this post, my other two favorites are below - #15 is a brand new one, too:

Codex Natura #4

Codex Natura #15

I also continue to try to photograph each full moon from somewhere here in Maine for my Adventures in Celestial Mechanics project, though life and weather often conspire against me. This project has been changing for me as the photographs I'm taking are increasingly more abstract and subtle, like this one:

Buddha Moon I

I should have qualified that subtle statement, as while most of the new work can be described that way, some of the new ones cannot. As you'll see below, the next two are a bit different...first up is the Blood Moon from September's lunar eclipse (a situation I've been trying to photograph for many years), and the Moon of the Ripening I from October is, well, pretty epic.

Blood Moon

Moon of the Ripening I

East of the Sun, West of the Moon is my other new project and I'm very excited about it as well. The challenges of these dark color images as well as the circular format have been pretty invigorating. Here are my three favorites, so far, from this new project:

Untitled #1

Untitled #3

Untitled #4

...and last but not least we have my Pyrotechnic project. I continue to haunt local public firework shows seeking out new images. Here are my three favorites from 2015:

Pyrotechnic #206

Pyrotechnic #220

Pyrotechnic #241

For those of you who made it all the way to the end, I'm also including a sneak peek at some of my Arizona/Southwest images from my fall artist residency. I'm still working through the very large pile of images, but these are some early ones that I find promising.

Chiricahua National Monument - Dark skies are one of the main attractions of SE Arizona, and they did not disappoint.

Chiricahua National Monument. I spent many days making photographs along the lines of this one -- I definitely think it has potential for a project.

White Sands National Monument. I'm not sure if this photograph is a keeper, but the many-colored reflections from the sand (mica) there if you got just at the right angle made one of my favorite sights I've ever seen. 

East of the Sun, West of the Moon

"Untitled #1"

I'm excited to reveal one of my new projects this year -- East of the Sun, West of the Moon. I've included the first twelve images from this project in a gallery on my website.

As for what it is about, please find my project statement below:

Stories of distant and mysterious lands have stirred my imagination since I was a young child, curled up each day with some type of escapist literature, whether it be mythology, fairy tales, or fantasy. In these stories, the best and most interesting worlds were those that were difficult to reach for the protagonist. Even now, when I am immersed in the natural world of this planet, I am still seeking glimpses of those alternative worlds with my photography.

A famous Norwegian tale talks of a young woman who sets off in search of her prince, who has been banished to the castle of his wicked stepmother. The young woman knows only that the castle is located east of the sun and west of the moon and, after many adventures and false steps, she reaches this difficult-to-find castle and rescues the prince. A place that is east of the sun and west of the moon has been known since as a place that is effectively part of another world and notoriously hard to reach.

In this project, I seek out landscapes that are evocative of another world, that seem to be of a different universe, time, or place than our own. Like those stories that fed my imagination in my own youth, these landscapes are portals to lands that lay east of the sun and west of the moon.

Buddha Moon

Buddha Moon I

I recently released my newest photographs from my Adventures in Celestial Mechanics project. I'm quite taken with these photographs of May's full moon and I chose the name Buddha Moon for this group of work amongst names from many traditions. May's full moon is considered the most important in the Buddhist tradition as the full moon of Buddha's death and rebirth.

Buddha Moon II

Buddha Moon III

Favorites of 2014

"Autumn Moon I", Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

Like many artists, I like to review my work from the previous year to get a sense of what I've accomplished and to come up ideas with new ways forward as well. Things have been a bit crazy this year, so I'm just barely completing this process by the end of January, but the process remains the same.

The images in this post are my favorites of 2014. As time goes on, other images may replace some of these in my end, but these are the images that tell the story of 2014 for me. Please note that these are what I consider my favorites, not the best, a much different and of course subjective list.

As always, I'd love to hear what you think, so let me know if you have any favorites yourself!

I'll lead off this list with Autumn Moon I above, a photograph I created from the top of Cadillac Mountain during my Acadia artist residency. This was a moonset across Penobscot Bay -- that mountain in the lower right is actually Ducktrap Mountain (a/k/a Point Lookout) in Northport, probably 30 or 40 miles or so across the bay.

I've continued to work on my Pyrotechnic series throughout 2014 and I have a few favorites from this series. First up is this one, which is currently in my show at the 555 Gallery in Boston.

"Pyrotechnic #128", Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

This Pyrotechnic photograph was from the fireworks show in December and is one I haven't released yet. Some of this series, like this one, really sing when printed very large where you can see the seemingly infinite details.

"Pyrotechnic #184", Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

I particularly love this one...this one reminds me of a landscape drawing in the Chinese tradition, a particular influence on me right now.

"Pyrotechnic #133", Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

In a similar style is a new project I'm working on relating to beaches. I'm still working on how I want this series to look, so the final result may differ from this. This photograph is from a camping trip on Hermit Island here in Maine.

Even though this project is still in its formative stages, I can't tell the story of 2014 without remembering this particular beach on Hermit Island and the exciting process of finding this beach and creating these photographs.

Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

My Adventures in Celestial Mechanics project was one of my primary focuses this year. Besides the Autumn Moon I photograph leading off this post, I also particularly loved Dog Days Moon I and Dragon Moon I, both of which explore a much different palette than my photographs from previous years.

"Dog Days Moon I", Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

"Dragon Moon I", Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

Rice Moon I, below, is in many ways of the perfect embodiment of my move towards abstraction with my full moon images.

"Rice Moon I", Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

My artist residency at Acadia National Park this year was of course a massive influence on my year, so it is not surprising that even more images from this 3-week timeframe make this list.

First up are two photographs from an amazing show of the Northern Lights from the top of Cadillac Mountain. I've been trying for years to photograph this type of display and finally succeeded, and it was one of the highlights of my year.

"Nightsong I", Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

"Nightsong II", Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

During my residency I also photographed many of the other natural wonders of the Schoodic region of Acadia at all times of day and night. Schoodic has many wonderful features but the aspect that I will always associate with my time there is the clouds. I've never seen as beautiful and varied clouds as I've seen in my times there.

Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

Another new project I started in 2014 relates to Jasper Beach up in the Down East region, one of my favorites places in Maine. I'm still processing the first images but I love how things are looking so far...

Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

Yet another new project that is still under wraps involves moonlight...I'm still trying to decide how the project will go, but this early photograph has me excited about the possibilities. 

Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

And last, but not least, another new project brought this night shot of a stop sign just around the corner from the house. That red line near the bottom is a car taillight during the long exposure. More on this and the other projects soon...

"Stop Monsanto", Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.