The Weight of Ash Ian Bates

Between 2014 and 2020, Ian Bates traveled tirelessly along the West Coast of the United States. For years, he has photographed there a charred land suffering from increasing scorching wildfires. But, far from any voyeuristic dramatization, scarce are the depictions of the roaring flames, or of the fire’s fury. Rather, standing at a respectful distance, Bates photographs in rich black and white tones what is at the margin, the traces, the aftermaths. The beauty and horror of the landscape, too, enshrouded in a grey cloak of ashes and plumes. “There is a moment after a wildfire burns but before humans return,” says Bates, “where the land and forests are both beautiful and terrifying.” 

His photographs, seemingly suspended out of time in a muffled silence, at the edge of the catastrophe, are a meditative exploration on this liminal stage between calm and violence, on the fine line we dance on when we build and expand on nature’s ground. A meditation on the harshness, anxiety, and beauty of wildfires—which can, as well as destroy, prepare a fertile ground for new life to start.

Originally from New Jersey, Ian Bates lives and works in the Bay Area. His photographs look at his curiosities of contradictions in human nature around the United States and how people interact with the environments they inhabit. He has shown work at Pier 24 (San Francisco), Filter Space (Chicago), and the Center for Photographic Art (Carmel), amongst others. He was chosen as one of PDN’s 30 Emerging Photographers to Watch in 2017. His work has been published in The New Yorker, National Geographic, The New York Times, Smithsonian, Rolling Stone and others.

Poem by Caitlin Lorraine Johnson. Essay by Daniel Gumbiner

- Hardcover
- 92 pages, 10.5 x 12.5 inches
- Duotone Offset