Newsletter: Summer 1995

Beahan and McPhee, who first met in 1978 in Professor Emmet Gowin's introductory photography class at Princeton University, have been working together over the past eight years on a series of color landscape photographs in Iceland, Hawaii, Costa Rica, Sri Lanka, and Italy, concentrating on areas of volcanic and geothermal activity. These sites are natural phenomena where the geology and history of the earth converge, although Beahan and McPhee are concerned less with the topography of the landscape than with the interaction of natural and cultural environments. In each of their photographs, human presence is implied, if not the dominant element. The images range from volcanic slopes to cultivated fields to the fictional landscapes of murals and flower shows. Conveying a sense of mystery by their remoteness from a familiar North American landscape, the photographs also explore the symbiotic relationships people create with the natural world they inhabit.

Working with a large-format camera, Beahan and McPhee collaborate in every aspect of the photographic process, from the exposure of the negative to the printing of each image. The prints are lush and saturated, in keeping with their primarily tropical locales, but there is also a serenity in these images that belies the precarious nature of communities that are determined to exist along the edge of a volatile environment.