My friend Rachel Sussman and her collection of photographs for the “Oldest Living Things In the World:”
My main driver for doing this work is really to have to think about sort of bigger-picture things — everything from environment to existentialism.
See also:
Jomon Sugi, Japanese Cedar (2,180 to 7,000 years old; Yaku Shima, Japan). The tree that started it all. “I had gone to Japan with no real agenda — just knowing that I wanted to photograph. … People kept telling me, ‘You have to go visit this tree.”
On perspective:
She notes that many of the subjects in her photographs are smaller than what the viewer might think. For example, the Armillaria fungus is actually the world’s largest living organism. But since it is mostly underground, it does not appear that way in the picture. Some of her subjects are found in fringe environments where almost nothing else grows. The Welwitschia, for example, is uniquely adapted to the Namibian desert and gets its moisture only from the adjacent sea. She finds a certain poetic quality in the subjects’ ability to adjust to extreme environments.
Congratulations to Rachel who’s in the “31 Women in Art Photography” exhibit in New York City. And only a few more old things to photograph.
